


Lingering Melodies

by Engineer104



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama & Romance, Espionage, Exes, F/M, Getting Back Together, Intrigue, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Suggestive Themes, antagonist is terrible and misogynistic and xenophobic at times, playing fast and loose with game lore and geography, so much drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26039860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: Felix wasn’t built for peace, so when Dimitri sends him on a diplomatic mission he can’t even begin to understand why. Worse, he’s forced to work alongside Annette, who he’s barely seen since the end of the war three years ago. But these negotiations are not what they seem, and with an odious and antagonistic host and danger and a fresh mystery lurking around every corner, Felix and Annette have to resolve their differences fast, or else suffer far-reaching consequences.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 79
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a netteflix fic first and a “Felix resolves some lingering ~~see what i did there~~ daddy issues among other things” second, so it leans plot-heavy and Felix in particular has a lot of angst to work through ;_; regardless, they’re both in for a rough ride, but i hope you’ll enjoy it!
> 
> i’ll give warning for possibly disturbing things in the notes of relevant chapters too.
> 
> My thanks to Rose for her encouragement and beta-ing ~~and for help brainstorming titles~~!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri assigns a group project for homework.

Felix needed all his fingers and at least a few toes to count all the times and reasons he ever wanted to kill Dimitri ranging from the perfectly logical to absolutely ridiculous. This newest request was probably a little of both, which was why Felix settled on crossing his arms and gritting out, “Do you even know what you’re asking me?”

“Well, sure,” Dimitri said. He smiled slightly, but Felix knew him well enough to recognize the edge of wariness to it. “I am the one who asked, of course.”

“And you want _me_ to head a diplomatic mission to Kleiman?” It was functionally the so-called Dukedom’s last stronghold even after the rest of what was once Faerghus swore fealty to a newly crowned King Dimitri, though Viscount Kleiman made noises of loyalty until he stirred up a fuss when he deprived him of Duscur.

So he invaded the territory he claimed was his, as one did, and Dimitri preferred to settle the dispute through negotiation rather than arms, which Felix did _not_.

“Why not send you?” Dimitri asked, sounding infuriatingly reasonable. “I trust that you have the Kingdom’s interests at heart.”

Felix wrinkled his nose before gesturing towards the paper-strewn desk - if Sylvain was here, he’d take Dimitri to task over its state - and the letter laid flat with a paperweight. “Why not send someone else?” he wondered. “It’s not a matter of interests, it’s about choosing someone fit for it.”

“Are you saying you’re unfit, Felix?”

“Yes,” he said easily. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword, the perfect example of why diplomacy, negotiating, _peace_ were scarcely his strengths for all he’d tried to do the best he could since the end of the war.

“Well,” Dimitri mused, “I can’t send Sylvain because he’s busy on the border, not that I think it would be kind to order him elsewhere with Mercedes about to have a baby, and I certainly can’t send Ingrid after the…debacle last year.”

At that Felix couldn’t resist a slight smile, when Ingrid finally grew weary of betrothals and humiliated Viscount Kleiman himself, her latest suitor, in a duel. It was less than the bastard deserved for the least of his crimes.

“Perhaps I’ll challenge him to a duel then too,” Felix mused, only half-serious. “We can have it finished quickly and I’ll be back in Fraldarius before Wyvern Moon.”

Dimitri actually scowled. “Do _not_ ,” he warned him. “I am trying to outlaw duels of honor; you’ll undermine my efforts if you do that, and you’ll risk angering him even more when you win for conditions he won’t honor.”

Felix rolled his eyes before falling into the chair opposite him. “Angering him more?” he echoed with a snort. “I don’t understand why you’re falling all over yourself to please a man who might’ve had something to do with your father’s death.”

He regretted his words as soon as Dimitri’s hand, resting on the desk, curled into a fist, knuckles whitening. “I’ve told you,” he said in a low voice that made him stiffen, “the instant I have enough evidence, he will pay, but until then the last thing I want is to plunge any part of Fodlan into another war.”

Felix straightened while an uncomfortable sensation twisted in his gut. His face fell into his hand, and he admitted, “I know. You may not believe this, but I don’t particularly want that either, even if House Fraldarius by itself could crush a house as weak as Kleiman.”

“Then we are on the same page,” Dimitri said, and the tension in his frame unraveled.

“Not yet,” he denied, shaking his head. “I still think you should send someone else.”

“Oh, I am,” he said.

Felix jumped and glared across the table on him. “Then why are we even having this conversation? Did you just want my input all along?”

“Ah, well, that too, I suppose,” Dimitri agreed with a wry sort of chuckle. “Actually, I still insist you go, I just won’t send you alone.”

“Even I’m not foolish enough to travel all the way to Kleiman alone, boar.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean a retinue or an escort,” he said, “but a partner of sorts? Someone you can work with and might be a…tempering influence on you so you _don_ _’t_ challenge anyone to a duel.”

“All right,” Felix said, and from the way Dimitri smiled he couldn’t help his wariness. “So long as it’s not Lorenz Gloucester.

“Oh, it’s just Annette,” Dimitri told him.

His heart skipped a beat before tightening, the feeling utterly familiar and utterly unwelcome. If Felix had been holding something, he would’ve broken or dropped it…how very like her, like Annette.

“A-Annette?” he said, trying for nonchalance, though he couldn’t hear his own voice for the thrumming of his pulse in his ears.

“Yes!” Dimitri sounded far too eager for Felix’s liking. “She’s between terms at the Royal School and even offered to take a sabbatical if your mission lasts a little long, but she agreed.”

“She did?” He gripped the edge of the desk to ground himself or to distract him from saying something incredibly stupid or revealing. “Does she know that she has to work with me?”

“She does,” Dimitri said. “I’ll admit she didn’t seem especially pleased about that, but I assured her as I will you that the two of you work very well together.”

“We haven’t worked…together since the war,” Felix reminded him.

And he’d done his best to avoid her since, skirting away from her at functions they both attended, not allowing himself to meet her eyes, stowing her letters unread in a drawer before she stopped sending them, burning every letter he found himself writing before remembering they wouldn’t be welcome.

But Dimitri wouldn’t know any of that; he’d been _careful_ , and only Ingrid knew…anything, and even she puzzled it out for herself without him telling her.

“Then you’ll have the perfect chance to work together again!” Dimitri said, and his tone - as if he thought he was handing Felix the best gift he possibly could - filled him with irritation.

So he tried a different tactic than rejecting the idea outright. “Sending me is well and good despite my doubts,” Felix started, “but Viscount Kleiman is an enemy, regardless of how you want to avoid any battle.”

“And?”

He swallowed, self-conscious under Dimitri’s thoughtful gaze, before explaining, “Do you really want to send A—her into a potentially dangerous situation?”

“It doesn’t have to be dangerous,” Dimitri protested, “though I acknowledge the risk, especially with these unverified rumors of sinister things like Demonic Beasts afoot.”

“Then—”

“I hardly think Annette would appreciate your argument, Felix,” he observed with a lift of his eyebrow. “Did you forget how she saved your life during the war?”

Felix’s fingernails dug into his leg through his trousers. “No,” he said through gritted teeth, “and I haven’t forgotten how her own uncle almost killed her either.”

“This won’t be like that,” Dimitri assured him. “She’ll have you and House Fraldarius’ best troops with her as an escort.”

And wasn’t that the problem? His jaw twitched, and he hoped that was the only way the tightening in his chest manifested.

* * *

Arranging the logistics of the actual journey was something of a nightmare that Felix was more than happy to shunt to his steward and captain. “We need enough force to intimidate him but not enough he’ll see us as a proper threat and think we’re attacking him.”

Lukas, the captain - one who served under his father and took to Felix’s ascension about as well as could be hoped - did as asked while the steward, Marcus, grumbled something about how Duke Rodrigue would never have relied on intimidation.

He pretended he hadn’t heard.

It was simple enough when someone other than a judgmental steward threatened to capture his attention.

His stomach flipped when he spotted Annette at the base of the steps leading up to the castle’s main entrance. She clutched a large bag in both hands and wore a traveling cloak draped over her slight frame, her hair, glittering almost gold in the sunlight, plaited crookedly at the back of her head. She wore an absentminded smile as she shifted from foot to foot, but it faltered when her gaze drifted up and landed on him.

“Good morning, Felix!” she called up to him with nary a quiver in her voice. It always amazed him how steady she could keep it when he used to know her so well even he could see and hear all the little things that betrayed her feelings.

“Morning,” he replied as he took the stairs down to join her.

His heart raced faster with every step closer, and Felix wondered how he was supposed to survive the weeks of travel and negotiation spent in Annette’s company.

When was the last time he saw her anyway? Not so long ago as Sylvain’s and Mercedes’ wedding, but she lived in Fhirdiad and he spent most of his time in Fraldarius overseeing his most important charge.

Sometime late in winter, he guessed. Perhaps when he was forced to linger during his last visit when a storm swept through and stranded him. She’d had fewer freckles then, he was sure.

Only when Annette’s cheeks turn pink did Felix realize he stared and tore his gaze away.

She flushed so easily and at the slightest provocation. He once delighted in it, in teasing her for her quirks and, when he grew more courageous, complimenting her just to watch the color rush to her cheeks. Sometimes she would huff at him and roll her eyes too, and that was its own treat, but eventually a smile would prod at her lips and he would have no choice but to lean down and to—

“Are you ready to go?”

Her voice jerked him from his spiraling thoughts. His own face warmed - what was he doing, daydreaming about her already? - but he said, “Yes. Let’s go.” He glanced around, only then realizing she was alone. “Wait, is no one coming with you?”

Annette’s brow furrowed with confusion. “Why would someone else come with me?”

“You’re…” Felix scrubbed a hand over his face in an attempt to collect himself. “Your uncle isn’t sending someone?”

“Why would he?” she wondered. “He can’t spare anyone just to chaperon me, Felix, and my father’s place is here anyway.”

He pressed his lips together and didn’t say what he thought about her father, not eager to pick a fight before they even left Fhirdiad (practicing his diplomatic skills, as he would’ve told Dimitri). “Is he coming to see you off?” he asked instead.

“Oh, I already said goodbye to him and Mother yesterday,” she told him. She smiled very slightly and added, “I haven’t left Fhirdiad since I moved here, so I’m a little eager to be off.” With that she started leading the way towards the stables.

Felix followed and, watching her struggle with her burden, reached for her bag. “Let me—”

“I’m fine,” Annette said, tugging it away from him and speeding up so she walked a few paces ahead of him.

Three years ago Felix might’ve insisted, but now he settled with curling his hand into a fist and pretending even that slight rejection didn’t sting.

(No more than the first one did.)

Unfortunately it was not a simple matter of mounting their horses and joining the small retinue of Fraldarius knights and soldiers before riding through the city and beginning the journey in earnest. Of course it wasn’t when all his so-called friends insisted on paying their respects or wishing them luck, or something.

Felix could appreciate Dedue’s silence especially then, when he only offered him a nod and said, “Good luck.” (And he managed to keep his own expression flat when Annette hugged him.)

Belatedly he remembered Dedue had more cause than most to hate Viscount Kleiman for the subjugation of Duscur, so he said, “Thank you.”

“I almost wish I could go with you,” Ashe confessed before returning to the castle with Dedue. He helped Annette shorten the stirrups on her gray mare’s saddle.

“Do you want me to take any letters for your brother and sister?” Annette wondered.

“Ah, no, that’s all right,” Ashe told her, smiling. “I don’t want to trouble you since Gaspard is still pretty far from Kleiman.”

“You can always bring them to live with you here,” Ingrid suggested without looking at him. Her gaze swept clinically over Felix, as if she was inspecting him for wounds, before sliding over towards Annette. Then, heedless to the other conversation, she leaned towards him and whispered, “Are you all right with this, Felix?”

“Does it even matter?” he wondered in a low voice. When Ingrid raised an eyebrow, he said, “It’s fine. I have my doubts, but they have nothing to do with—it doesn’t matter.”

No, if only his doubts could be limited to whether he and Annette could work together peaceably, but life would never commit the crime of being so simple.

When did it even get so damn complicated?

Ingrid rested her hand on his shoulder, and maybe it was a sign of how…rattled he was that he didn’t bother shrugging it off.

“Don’t duel him,” she warned him.

“Hypocrite,” he retorted.

She rolled her eyes and said, “I think there’s a little more at stake now than my hand in marriage. Lives, for example, and the stability of the Kingdom we’re all trying to rebuild.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Felix said. “Believe me when I say I wish everything could be solved with a duel. Fewer casualties, and it’s something I actually know how to do.” His gaze drifted to Annette then when she laughed at something Ashe said, right as hers flitted to him.

He frowned at his boots and ignored the hand squeezing his chest.

“You’ll be fine,” Ingrid assured him. “I doubt you’ll want to hear this—”

“Then spare me.”

“—but I personally think you’re a lot better at, well, peace than Glenn would’ve been.”

He glared at her, and to his gratification her face flushed very slightly. “Thank you,” he said, not even bothering to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “That makes me feel so much better.”

Ingrid sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she told him. “I only meant that you’re…different. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be, and I think His Majesty must see that too.”

Felix couldn’t think of how to respond to that despite his persistent doubts, so he settled on a shrug.

Annette hugged Ingrid, whose eyes widened in surprise before she smiled and returned it while Ashe grinned at him.

“I’m not hugging you,” he said.

“That’s all right,” Ashe said, his grin not faltering in the slightest bit. “Travel safely. Take care of each other.” He offered Annette his hand and helped her mount her horse, his other hand resting on her waist as she vaulted up.

Felix pinched his eyes shut for a heartbeat, a part of him wishing he’d thought to do that first. He mounted his own horse and grabbed the reins to steady her when she shifted her footing beneath him.

Ingrid laughed, and even Annette giggled. “You look so uncomfortable.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled as his ears warmed.

And after Annette offered Ingrid and Ashe one last wave they rode away through busy streets that still showed signs of Cornelia’s rule and the war before leaving the castle and city behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is easily the shortest chapter in the fic. Most of the rest will be at least twice as long as this, so look forward to that haha


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annette wants to talk shop, Felix tries His Best (probably), and Viscount Kleiman enters stage left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all the kind words on the first chapter. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the fic from here on out, because it's definitely going to get more...lively pretty quickly <3
> 
> I don't acknowledge any degree of realism in the travel times ~~or anything really~~ in this fic or in any fic i write but also Fodlan isn't real (that's the excuse i'm using).

It was all too easy for Felix to slip into an old routine of traveling with a battalion once they joined with the soldiers he sent for from Fraldarius. Maybe he’d spent too much of his youth on the move to ever feel truly settled, least of all in a childhood home vacant of so many childhood fixtures, but there was something almost comfortable about the march west.

Even Annette’s presence was welcome, though she rarely rode beside him in the first days. More often her voice drifted to where he rode at the front while she chatted with some of the soldiers too young to have fought in the war. They seemed to admire her, and from the corner of his eye he spotted her performing small magic tricks to their delighted applause.

“What has you so amused, Your Grace?”

Felix blinked before he realized that he was smiling. He smoothed his expression into something less…revealing and glanced at his steward riding beside him. “What?”

“You were smiling,” Marcus observed. “It was notable; you rarely smile.”

His eyebrow twitched, and he wasn’t sure if he should feel offended or not so he settled on retorting, “Do I need a reason?”

“I suppose not, but I would guess it has something to do with Miss—”

“I think I’ll bring up the rear for a time,” Felix cut him off. He tugged on his horse’s reins to turn her around and kicked her to skirt along the column to the back.

Only to hear another set of hooves picking up to follow.

His heart skipped a beat and he had to fight some impulse that urged him to spur his own horse faster, as if to evade enemy pursuit, but when he turned her back around he found that Annette had followed him.

He’d almost rather face an enemy; at least then he knew what to do and wouldn’t have to think what to say or how he should feel.

His horse, apparently sensing his nerves, tossed her head and he had to clutch at the reins lest she bolt. Annette took that opportunity to steer her own mare abreast of him, and together they brought up the rear.

They rode distant enough from the back of the column they could speak privately too. Felix wondered if Annette had been waiting for this chance because in their first week out of Fhirdiad he’d taken care to never be alone with her whether they rested for the night at an inn or in some minor lord’s castle as guests or—

“Felix?” Annette prompted, and he knew he’d let the silence drag on for too long.

He suppressed a sigh and only offered her a terse, “What?”

She scowled, and he couldn’t even begin to guess why. “What, would you treat me more civilly if I called you ‘Your Grace’?” she wondered.

“What? No,” Felix said, blinking in surprise. “I just…” Guilt bit at him before he recognized it as ridiculous; _he_ didn’t have any reason for guilt. “You seemed like you were having fun with my soldiers,” he observed then. “Why did you come find me?”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me since we set out from Fhirdiad!” Annette exclaimed.

He rolled his eyes, grip on the reins tightening in lieu of his sword. “You never seemed to mind before,” he muttered.

“That’s because—it, well, it doesn’t matter right now,” she said without quite looking at him. Her lips twisted into a frown, and it hurt almost as much to think he was the one that put it there as it did to see it. “I think we should talk about—”

“No,” Felix interrupted her. He braced himself to kick his horse away after all and rejoin the front of the column, because the last thing he wanted right now was to discuss—

“—the mission,” Annette finished lamely, and she flashed him a sour look.

“Oh,” he said. Heat rushed to his face so he cast his gaze elsewhere. “Yes, we probably should.”

“Good,” she said with a satisfied nod. She smiled, but there was something distinctly insincere in it that only made him feel worse. “I just want us to be on the same page since this is such an important mission.”

“It’s only Kleiman,” Felix said. “It’s hardly a large territory.”

“Well, then it would be even more ridiculous to fight another war and lose more people over it!” she reminded him. “What do we know about what Viscount Kleiman wants?”

“He’s throwing a fit because Dimitri took Duscur from him,” he explained, his nose wrinkling with distaste. “Now he’s invading them again and threatening all the surrounding territory, and the whole western Kingdom is _still_ not secured since the end of the war.”

Annette shifted in her saddle, her gaze downcast. A part of him wanted to ask if she was thinking of her own house, but he held his tongue.

“His Majesty also told me there have been Demonic Beast sightings,” she said, “but he hadn’t had the chance to verify them.”

“Why is that unusual?” he asked. “There are always Demonic Beasts to fight.”

“They’re…the same kind the Empire used, Felix,” Annette replied.

A chill traveled down his spine, remembering great stone beasts with eerily humanoid faces and Crest Stones embedded in their foreheads. Different from the giant, venom-spitting lizards or growling wolves or screeching ravens that cast gales in their wake, somehow even more unnatural than those.

“Oh,” Felix said. “Good. Perfect. And here I thought this mission would be dull.”

Annette rolled her eyes before her face fell. “I’m…worried,” she admitted.

“Why?” he asked, though he could name a few reasons of his own. The danger from stone Demonic Beasts was only one more wrinkle, one more risk on an already hazardous mission for all Dimitri insisted it was diplomatic.

“Because we never even learned how the Empire made or controlled those,” Annette said. “I know Professor Hanneman looked into it during the war, but I read through his research before we left Fhirdiad and all his results were inconclusive.”

“Are you suggesting Viscount Kleiman wants to revive the Empire?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, “but I do wonder if someone that worked for or with the Empire slipped through our grasp and set themselves up in Kleiman.”

“Then we’ll have to find out for ourselves when we get there,” Felix realized. He gritted his teeth; what had Dimitri gotten him and Annette into?

“He won’t just tell us,” Annette said. “His Majesty said his ideal outcome was arresting Viscount Kleiman for treason.”

“Right,” he said, nodding. “We’ll need evidence for that.”

“So we negotiate with him while we look for that,” she suggested. “We determine what he wants and offer him…something.”

Felix scoffed. “Not what he actually wants, surely.”

“Of course not,” she retorted. “We just convince him he’ll gain more if he stops fighting Duscur and his neighbors.”

“What did you have in mind to offer him?” he wondered. He glanced sideways at her, and for the first time since Dimitri charged them with this pointless mission he almost felt…confident that it could succeed, all thanks to Annette.

Maybe Felix was an utterly dreadful diplomat, but maybe with her it wouldn’t matter.

But then her face fell, and she avoided his gaze. “Well, um, I hope it’s a last resort, because it’s not really…ideal, but His Majesty suggested—”

The abrupt rearing and neighing of horses ahead of them cut her off. Felix tensed, hand falling to the hilt of his sword as his own mount halted.

“What…”

Instantly the shouts and cries of fighting men and women rang out, and from the trees ringing the roadway on both sides erupted a flood of fighters wielding weapons. And above it rose the roaring of an unseen Demonic Beast.

Arrows rained from either side, and Felix swung his Shield around over his head at the exact instant one collided with it.

It fell uselessly to the ground, but he wasted no time jumping from his horse and drawing his sword with a scraping of steel. A fighter with an ax fell upon him, but his swing was sloppy and it was all too easy for Felix to swipe under his arm and cut into his flesh.

He reeled back with a pained shout, but other enemies flooded the road, prepared to fight. “Form up!” he yelled over the din, trying to wrestle some semblance of control over his soldiers. He didn’t understand how easily they could be surrounded and ambushed by mere bandits - had their scouts been sloppy? He’d have to have a talk with the captain - but they wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

But somehow his men were fragmented, their formation disrupted so thoroughly, and horses bred for war…should not be screaming and shying away from a battle like this.

Felix’s sword dipped, confusion gripping him. “What the hell is going—”

“Lord Felix!”

“ _Felix_!”

He jerked around at the sound of Annette’s voice raised in alarm before she crashed into him. He stumbled, his footing faltering, and raised his Shield. The Crest Stone embedded in it pulsed, but the spell that struck it was powerful enough it still left him stunned, head spinning.

Beside him, Annette’s arms swung around, as deadly as any blade when a spell glyph burst into life beneath her and the air hummed with energy. Her hair whipped around her face and her jaw set stubbornly as she unleashed a violent burst of wind.

It caught several foes across the chest, including the mage that had aimed their spell at Felix.

Wait.

The mage wore a mask with a protruding beak, a pointed hood atop their head and long flowing robes that tore around them as they withstood the force of Annette’s spell while the armed men around them faltered.

The battle seemed to shrink to a point, the screams of men and the unmistakable screeching and rumbling of a rampaging Demonic Beast fading, until only the masked mage mattered.

“Capture them,” Felix decided before pointing and repeating louder, “Take that mage alive!”

Only a handful of men heard his orders, but they all charged, lances and swords raised.

A violet glyph, so different from the ones Annette shaped, flared before them as the ground beneath them rumbled. Felix bent his knees and kept his footing, but his soldiers weren’t so lucky.

The ground melted and warped beneath them. Their feet sunk into it, and violet tendrils of _something_ lashed out at them and grabbed them. They screamed as the very ground climbed up their legs and bodies and swallowed them.

“No, no, no—” He dove for the nearest one without thinking, heart racing high in his throat, but before his fingertips could grab him a force of energy struck him in the chest.

He watched as if it happened to someone else, watching as a violet ooze seeped through his leather jerkin before scalding him. He gritted his teeth against the pain lancing under his skin, grip on his sword wilting, and only distantly heard Annette shouting his name.

“Felix! Oh, I’m going—come back!”

He jerked his head back in time for the masked mage to turn towards him and understand they met his gaze before they vanished in a flash of white light.

Felix cursed as he stood - when did he even fall? - and leaned heavily against Annette when she wrapped an arm around his back. The sounds of battle around them faded as the Fraldarius soldiers finally overwhelmed the Demonic Beast, and the surviving able attackers retreated back into the trees.

“—lix? Felix?”

He nodded; he’d been staring at the patch of ground from where the mage disappeared, his gaze drifting to where the only remains of the soldiers that failed to capture them were their weapons, lying uselessly on the road. “What?”

“H-how badly are you hurt?” Annette wondered. “I-I need to know if I’ll be able to heal you or—”

“I’m not bleeding,” he said, though an ache settled dully at the back of his head, his whole left side was numb, and his chest felt as if someone poured hot oil over it. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said instantly. When he glanced in her direction, he couldn’t help scanning her face and clothes for any signs of injury.

Relief washed over him; the hem of her sleeves were singed and she had dirt stains on her dress and a streak of it across her forehead but otherwise looked unscathed.

He raised his hand and wiped the dirt from her forehead with his thumb before stiffening. “Uh…”

Annette flushed but still scowled at him. He tried to think up an excuse, that it was an old habit he couldn’t help falling into, that she would probably just yell at him later for not telling her she had dirt on her face, but instead he insisted, “Take care of yourself and everyone else first.”

He pulled away from her, pleased when he kept his footing despite his knees trembling, though his side felt cold though the sun’s heat beat down on them. “I need to—check on something.”

“Felix—”

He trudged away with his Shield still strapped to his arm, through his soldiers struggling to pick themselves up. They stared after him, and he tried to offer them consoling, comforting nods (or something), unsure what else he should do. Some asked if he was all right, one knight leaning against her lance wondered what happened, and one of the younger archers clutched at a bleeding arm with tears streaming down his cheeks while the battalion healer tended to him.

Felix wasn’t any good at this, but he’d need to tell them all…something. For now he’d settle with trying to determine what went wrong, how a damn Demonic Beast and a masked mage and highway robbers could sneak up on them so easily.

He found his steward, blessedly uninjured, trying to calm a young knight with his leg bent at an odd angle. Marcus glanced up at Felix’s approach and said, “I’m glad to see you on your feet, Your Grace.”

“Right,” he said, and winced when he set the knight’s leg to the chorus of a pained and shocked scream. “What happened? How the hell did we get ambushed?”

Marcus nodded meaningfully towards the knight, and Felix remembered he ought to be more discreet. So he left him to his task and kept on.

The only signs left of the Demonic Beast were deep scores in the ground and soot staining the paving stones and…a blood-red Crest Stone. Felix frowned and picked it up, turning it in his hand.

It was roughly cut, and he didn’t recognize the Crest carved into it as anything a common Demonic Beast would bear, not that he _could_ recognize every single Crest on sight. Annette might, but just as he slipped the Stone into a pocket, someone hailed him.

Hooves clopped over stone ground, and when Felix looked up he found a small party of knights approaching, their horses picking their way over the gouges scored by the Demonic Beast. At their head rode a helmeted paladin in full regalia with a proud bearing and wicked lance held upright.

Felix straightened and reached for his sword only to realize he’d been too distracted to pick it up from where he dropped it. He cursed under his breath, frustration flickering within him; of all the foolish mistakes…

The paladin halted his horse before him and raised his hand so the knights trailing him followed suit. He appraised Felix from beneath his helmet, and he had the distinct impression the man was trying to size him up.

Well, he could play at that game. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he demanded.

“Duke Fraldarius, I take it?” said the man, his gaze falling to the Aegis Shield. A curling mustache peeked out from under his helmet, and Felix wondered what it was about men in his father’s generation with bad facial hair.

“Yes?” Felix said. He crossed his arm over his chest, conscious of how woefully unarmed he was (he’d make sure to carry a spare for the rest of the mission).

“Excellent,” said the paladin. When another knight approached unprompted he tossed the reins to him before dismounting.

Felix stepped away on reflex as he bridged the gap between them, but he only lifted his visor and offered him a hand. “Welcome to Kleiman,” he said, smiling wide enough he flashed white teeth. “I am the Viscount; it is quite an honor to meet the young Duke Fraldarius, as I didn’t have the pleasure when last I was in Fhirdiad.”

Felix didn’t take his hand; did he imagine the emphasis he seemed to put on “young”? And where the hell was Annette? If ever he had need of her, it was—

“Felix!”

Speak of the Beast…

She panted as she drew closer before her foot caught in the hem of her dress and made her stumble. He reached out and caught her by the wrist, the muscle memory of the action almost as startling to him as the action itself, and he hoped he wasn’t blushing when she recovered her balance.

He held on a beat longer than he had to, long enough Annette’s gaze caught his and her eyebrows drew together. “Felix?” she said in a low voice.

He let go and drew back with the old, familiar ache in his chest.

“You, um, are you all right?” Annette demanded then. “Well, I suppose that’s a stupid question considering, but it’s not like you to forget your _sword_.” She held it out to him, clutching the hilt in both hands, its tip facing down.

The blade glistened with drying blood - he’d need to clean it later - when he took it. Their fingers brushed, shooting heat up his arm he tried not to think too hard about, but the hilt fit comfortably in his hand, and he felt much better for having it back.

“Thank you,” he told her.

Her cheeks turned pink, and she tore her eyes away from him. “Right, well, if you’re going to run around with untreated injuries you should at least have your sword with you,” she retorted. Then her gaze fell on the dismounted paladin before them.

And Felix remembered they had an audience.

Viscount Kleiman’s smile as his eyes fell on Annette reminded Felix of a predator. This was the same man who’d thought to tie himself to the crown by marrying a close friend of the king’s, and he’d angered Ingrid enough she elected to duel him rather than face future unwanted suitors.

Felix’s grip on his sword hilt tightened, and his spine stiffened so he couldn’t succumb to the urge to step between them and shield Annette from Kleiman’s view.

“And who might you be?” he wondered. He took her hand and bent over it to kiss the air over her knuckles, an old-fashioned courtly greeting for a high-born lady.

Annette stared at him with wide eyes, but she recovered quickly. Her lips lifted into a faint smile as she bobbed a shallow curtsy. “Annette of House Dominic,” she said. “You must be Viscount Kleiman then.”

“Indeed I am,” he said, his own smile scarcely faltering though his eyes slid over to Felix. “His Majesty only warned me I would play host to Duke Fraldarius but said nothing of the esteemed Sir Gustave’s daughter.”

“Um…” Annette’s smile turned strained. “He didn’t?” She glanced at Felix, and he shrugged, wishing he could tell her he didn’t know what to make of Dimitri’s reticence either.

But he would have words for him when he returned to Fhirdiad; of that he had no doubt.

“You know my father then?” Annette asked with a note of curiosity Felix recognized in it. Distantly he remembered her grilling him for information years ago, when she first learned Sir Gustave resided in Fraldarius for most of the war against the Dukedom. It wasn’t quite the same this time - she was curious rather than desperate, and it was a different reason for the twisting in Felix’s gut - but the familiarity of it still made his chest tighten.

“Not well, I confess,” said Viscount Kleiman. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “He must be quite proud of you, Your Grace.”

“I’m…what?” Felix blinked, and his confusion washed away most of his irritation. “Who’s proud of me?”

“Ah, but I was speaking to your charming wife the Duchess,” the viscount corrected.

“My…”

“We’re not married,” Annette said, then, after a quick sideways glance at Felix that only deepened the dread in his stomach, repeated in a smaller voice, “We’re not.”

His eyes fluttered shut at the same time he pushed away a memory and the hurt and confusion that always accompanied it. When he opened them again he made sure he wasn’t looking at Annette but at Viscount Kleiman and informed him, “We’re still both here to discuss with you on King Dimitri’s behalf. I’m sure I don’t have to waste time explaining why.”

Something dark flickered in the viscount’s gaze when it drifted to him. “No, you are quite right. Now, the two of you look simply exhausted, so might I suggest we all camp here until the morning and continue this wonderful discussion once we reach the comfort of Castle Kleiman?”

“Not yet,” Felix said, though every muscle in his body - including his saddle-sore backside - screamed at him. He nodded towards the gouges cutting across the road and demanded, “Tell me what you know of these stone Demonic Beasts.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We were attacked by a stone Demonic Beast and some…rather organized highway robbers,” Annette explained. Her eyes flitted to Felix before slipping away again, and he wondered at how she didn’t mention the masked mage, who looked to be their leader before they warped away. “Would you know anything about that, my lord?”

Viscount Kleiman hummed as he smoothed down the ends of his mustache with two fingertips. “I confess my men and I were tracking a stone Demonic Beast,” he said. “Perhaps it was the very same as the one that attacked your well-armed escort.” His gaze slipped past Felix towards his woeful battalion, and a rush of shame that he couldn’t keep his own soldiers safe washed over him. “It appears it surprised you.”

“You were tracking it?” Felix pressed.

“Ah, yes, Kleiman has unfortunately fallen victim to such bizarre Beasts of late,” he explained. “I’m afraid I am as yet unaware of their specific origins, but perhaps you might help me investigate that during your visit, Your Grace.”

He pressed his lips together while his heart thumped uncomfortably in his chest. He glanced at Annette again in time to see her shake her head ever so slightly before telling the viscount, “We’ll think about it.”

“That is all I ask,” said Viscount Kleiman, bowing his head. “I would imagine we will all do quite a lot of thinking in the days and weeks ahead, but for now let us rest. And Your Grace?”

“Yes?”

“I suggest you keep a generous watch tonight,” he said with a stern frown that he couldn’t help but think condescending. “I’m afraid my lands are no longer as safe as they once were.”

Felix nodded, in acknowledgment or in thanks, before turning away and walking towards his own soldiers. Annette trailed after him after bidding the viscount goodbye.

She slipped her arm through his right.

He stiffened. “What are you—”

“You’re limping, Felix,” she chided him.

“So?”

“ _So_?” she echoed incredulously. “You want _him_ to see you limping?”

A sigh escaped him but he leaned slightly into her (though not so close enough he could give into the old urge to inhale her scent). “You’re right. It’s all the riding we’ve been doing.”

“And not the battle?”

“The battle was…not that terrible,” Felix lied even as a fist closed around his heart and squeezed.

Apparently either Marcus or the captain, Lukas, had elected on their own to stop here for the night, for his soldiers were already busy setting up camp right there on the road, pitching tents and lighting fires. It looked as if most of the horses had also returned while several knights - healed and unarmored - tended them.

A sentry on duty saluted them - or Felix, more likely - as they passed, and he offered him a nod.

“Get something to eat,” he told Annette when they approached the first campfire. He slipped his arm out of hers and stepped away. “I need to clean my sword and speak with the captain.”

Annette rested her hands on her hips. “You have untended injuries, you villain,” she reminded him. “You got hit with”—she lowered her voice—”dark magic. That can leave lasting damage if no one heals you.”

He lowered his head, unable to meet her piercing blue eyes, not when her concern almost hurt. “Fine,” he said. “Come to my tent after you eat.”

Her eyes widened. “Your—are you sure about that, Felix?”

Felix pressed a hand against his chest and bit his lip to avoid wincing at the pain. “I was struck here,” he told her. “I doubt anyone wants to see me without a shirt.”

“Well, I w—I guess,” Annette said. She crossed her arms and bit her lip before agreeing, “Fine, I’ll find you later, but when I do, don’t you dare try and put me off!” She jabbed a finger into his chest for emphasis only to mumble a hurried apology when he couldn’t suppress a hiss.

She left him with his sword in hand and his Shield weighing heavy on his arm, and before he lost sight of her hair swinging against her back he turned to search for someone who could tell him how terrible the day had been.

Marcus found him first. He practically shoved him into a stool at the entrance to the tent someone had erected for him before confiscating both his sword and the Aegis Shield and dropping a bowl of camp stew into his hands.

Felix stared mournfully at his bloodied sword even as the scent of the well-seasoned meat in the stew enticed him. “I need to clean that,” he said.

“Later,” said Marcus, “or order someone else to do it for you.”

“I prefer to clean my own weapons,” Felix complained.

“And in that, at least, you are quite like Lord Rodrigue.”

His mood soured even more, his appetite shrinking so he only picked at his stew with his pewter spoon. “You keep reminding me I’m not like the old man,” Felix said. “Why bother? I don’t even _want_ to be like him.”

Marcus sighed. “Perhaps I misspoke,” he said.

“About what?” he grumbled, and to his own ears he sounded like a petulant child.

“You seem to misunderstand me anyway, Your Grace.”

“If I’m not like the old man, then why even call me that?” Felix wondered.

“Because it’s your title.”

He scoffed; this conversation was going nowhere, and he didn’t particularly wish to speak about his father or be taken to task for being unlike him when he preferred it that way. “Just tell me how disastrous the ambush was already.”

“Five good knights dead,” Marcus said immediately, as if he’d prepared the speech. “They died for king and country, though we were unable to find three of their bodies and won’t be able to send them home to their families.”

Felix’s gut twisted, his grip on his spoon tightening as if it was his sword. He felt sick and wondered if it was an ill effect of the dark magic that struck him. “How didn’t we anticipate this?”

“It was an ambush, though I suspect I am not the best person to ask this.”

He wrinkled his nose and admitted, “I suppose not. We shouldn’t have been caught unawares like that.” He couldn’t help thinking something sinister was at play here, something more and worse than simple highway robbery, not with a Demonic Beast and a masked dark mage, not that highway robbers would’ve been bold enough to attack a damn battalion riding with the Crest of Fraldarius as its standard.

“Well, there are still the survivors,” said Marcus, “including you, Your Grace. Everyone should be healed sufficiently enough by morning to continue traveling and take up arms should this happen again, and thanks to our priest’s and Miss Dominic’s hard work no one suffered lasting damage.”

“Good,” Felix said. He set aside his half-empty bowl before retrieving his sword and tugging a cloth from his pocket.

His fingers brushed the Crest Stone that the Demonic Beast left behind.

“At least finish your dinner,” Marcus bemoaned.

“I’m not hungry.”

“That is unlike—”

“My father, I know,” Felix cut him off without bothering to keep the irritation from his tone.

“I was going to say that’s unlike _you_ , Your Grace,” Marcus said with a hint of laughter in his voice.

Which was absurd. Marcus never laughed; he was even more dour than him, though he probably smiled more.

Felix glared at him. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re dismissed. Go rest and eat with the others.”

For once he obeyed, drifting away at the same time as Annette approached.

Just as well. He couldn’t bear to be alone with the thoughts swirling through his mind, not when a task as simple as cleaning his blade couldn’t numb him so well.

He wondered idly how she would react if he asked her to sing for him; he couldn’t remember the last time she did, and—

No, that was stupid too. She would refuse - she had no reason to accept, not after everything - and he had no right to ask it of her.

“Did you eat?” he asked her instead. Better to open their inevitable conversation with something perfectly innocuous.

Annette squatted in front of him and picked up the bowl he’d set aside. “Did you?” she retorted needlessly.

“I asked first,” he muttered under his breath before rubbing at a speck of dust a little rougher than necessary.

“Yes, I did, thank you for asking!” she said so brightly it had to be feigned. She sat back on her heels and propped her arms on her knees. “I need to heal you, Felix.”

“I know,” he said. “Let me finish—”

“ _Now_ ,” Annette hissed, and her harshness took him aback with its suddenness. She bolted to her feet, arms extended when she stumbled, and grabbed his arm. “Healing now, sword later.”

“A-Annette—” he tried protesting, but she paid him no mind as she shoved her way into his tent and tugged him along behind her.

It plunged them into a dusky darkness when the tent flap fell. Felix’s heart beat loud in the space, and the noises of the camp beyond the canvas walls faded.

If riding with her at the rear of the column earlier had been difficult, then this—

This was torture.

He felt well and truly cornered watching her fumble through his bag of belongings in search of something. His skin crawled with discomfort or restlessness, one more complaint to add to a growing list, but his feet froze to the floor and kept him from fleeing.

Where would Felix go anyway? Annette would follow and threaten to knock him unconscious until after she healed him likely as not.

For some reason the thought brought a smile to his lips.

At the same instant Annette exclaimed, “Aha, found one!” A tiny glyph flashed, and the tip of a candle wick ignited and cast them into deeper flickering shadows. “Sit down and take off your shirt, please.”

Felix’s smile slipped, but he did as directed. He unbuckled his belt and set it and his sword - he _would_ clean it before he slept - aside before his traveling cloak joined them. He stripped off his gloves and ignored the foolish trembling in his fingers as he fumbled with the buttons and shrugged out of his shirt.

His face warmed when he caught Annette’s eye and hoped she wouldn’t see.

But she tore her gaze away first, her lips pressed together once her eyes dropped to his chest. Her eyebrows drew together and a grimace crossed her face, which was more than enough for Felix to determine that she did not like what she saw.

He sat cross-legged on his bedroll and tried to ease the stiffness in his spine as she perched beside him. One of her hands, soft and warm, rested on his shoulder blade and the other braced gently against his chest a few fingers away from where his heart beat unsteadily against his ribs.

He closed his eyes so he couldn’t see how the tip of her tongue peeked out from between her lips, or how her long eyelashes cast shadows over her cheeks, or how her eyes shone in the candlelight and burned into him like any flame.

But closing his eyes didn’t help at all when memories assailed him, from when it hurt less to be this close to her, when he could bridge the distance between them and seal his lips over hers, steal her breath and make it his captive like his thoughts and heart were hers.

A warmth trickled into his chest where Annette’s palm rested against his skin. He winced at a sudden burst of intense heat but didn’t flinch away. It diminished as it spread through him, and when her hand fell away it left his skin cold.

Felix retrieved his shirt and tugged it back on before opening his eyes.

Annette still sat beside him, her hands loosely clasped in her lap and her gaze flitting around his tent. It landed on where his steward had propped up the Aegis Shield, and she mused, “I think that saved your life today, Felix.”

“I think you did,” he argued.

She shrugged as if unconvinced, but he decided not to press it and settled with rubbing the dull ache at the back of his head.

“The ambush…” Annette’s voice drew his attention again, and this time she met his eyes. “How do ordinary bandits get so organized they can work with a Demonic Beast like that?”

“Perhaps the Demonic Beast attacked us and they took advantage of the chaos,” Felix said, though he didn’t really believe it.

Judging from the way she arched an eyebrow at him, she probably didn’t either. “That mage with them, they must’ve been the leader.”

“You didn’t mention them to Viscount Kleiman,” he noted. “Why not?”

“Don’t you remember the Empire fighting with masked mages like that?” Annette wondered instead. She pulled her legs close and wrapped her arms around them. “First the stone Beasts - though I guess now we can verify the rumors His Majesty told me about - and now a mage in a creepy mask.” A sigh escaped her, and she rested her forehead on her knees.

She looked so small Felix had to stop himself from reaching for her. He sat on one hand and busied himself with unlacing his boots with the other.

“So you suspect him of sympathizing with the Empire?” he asked. But goddess did he feel so slow and stupid puzzling over all this, particularly with his headache.

“The Empire, the Dukedom, some other faction we don’t know about.” She frowned at his Shield, this time as if it offended her, and admitted, “Maybe it doesn’t really matter. We need more information.”

“We’ll find it,” he promised. “We just need time, and these abysmal negotiations will give us some.”

“You’re right,” Annette agreed. She then surprised him when she leaned closer.

His breath caught and he froze, but she didn’t touch him. “What—”

“Be careful, Felix,” she said.

“I’m always careful,” he said, though from her scowl he knew she didn’t believe him.

“No, I mean…watch your back,” she said. “Make sure you always have someone - one of your soldiers or something - with you, or the Aegis Shield.” Her nose wrinkled sweetly before she added, “And don’t forget your sword anymore.”

“That was strange of me,” he said. “The ambush bothered me.” He leaned away from her to avoid breathing her in and asked, “What’s bothering _you_?”

“I think—no, I _know_ the masked mage that attacked us was targeting you.”

“What?” he said, eyes widening in shock. “How do you know?”

“He aimed more than one spell at you, idiot,” Annette retorted, rolling her eyes. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

“He was probably trying to weaken our strongest man first,” Felix guessed. When she flashed him an unimpressed glance, he said, “I don’t say that out of arrogance.”

“Yes, you do!” she practically screeched, and he winced, startled anew. She sighed and rubbed her face before grumbling, “Well, the ambush also proved that just because you _are_ one of the best swordsmen in Fodlan doesn’t mean you’re untouchable, so don’t do anything stupid thinking you’re invincible or—or something.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he assured her. “We’re not here to start any fights.”

“Yet they seem to follow us - or, well, _you_ \- anyway.” Her glare softened then, but there was a wrinkle on her forehead Felix wanted to smooth away. Her obvious and misplaced concern warmed him, and he wanted to drag her to him and—

This was why he couldn’t - _shouldn_ _’t_ \- be alone with her.

“You be careful too,” he told her. “I don’t trust Viscount Kleiman.”

“That makes two of us,” Annette agreed.

“We should probably assume that, as long as we’re with him and his men, someone might be spying on us too.”

“Probably for the best,” she said. “Pretend we’re being followed or that someone’s listening; it’ll be safest.”

“And what if we need to discuss?” Felix wondered. “Do you have any anti-eavesdropping magic up your sleeve?”

“I don’t even think that exists,” Annette admitted, but her gaze took on a contemplative, faraway quality. “Although…”

“Then as soon as we reach our destination we find somewhere more isolated we can speak freely,” he decided. “Even if we have to leave the castle to do it.” Here he was, after years of avoiding her, making plans with her.

The boar was probably laughing in his study; Ingrid was probably the one guarding him too.

“We can always exchange coded notes,” she suggested right before dismissing, “No, even if they were coded someone could intercept and get suspicious…”

“We don’t have to worry about this right now,” he told her.

“You’re right,” she agreed then. A slight smile quirked her lips before she confessed, “I don’t know, it’s dangerous but it’s also a little exciting, isn’t it?”

“It’s certainly…a challenge,” Felix said, but he couldn’t help his own wry smile.

“It’s a different one than I’m used to at the Royal School for sure,” Annette said. “And I, well, I missed working with you too.”

His heart skipped a beat, but worse than that was the abrupt surge of bitterness that rose within him at her words. His hand curled into a fist, and it was all he could do to press his lips together and not retort something he’d regret, that might hurt her a fraction of how she once hurt him.

But she seemed to recognize that was the wrong thing to say. Her smile faltered and she said, “I think I…should be going. Make sure you get some sleep after cleaning your sword, and—”

“Just go,” he whispered.

She sucked in a breath, and he couldn’t look at her for fear that he would see hurt at his dismissal flitting across her face. “All right,” she said. The fabric of her dress rustled as she stood. “Good night, Felix.”

Felix nodded, but by the time he swallowed the welling of emotions and regained use of his tongue enough to tell her to sleep well, she was gone.

* * *

Felix didn’t know how to make speeches - that was more the boar’s purview, and even his father rarely did, preferring to speak to the people he led in small groups as if he could win them over through sheer charisma.

Which worked for him, but Rodrigue hadn’t spared any degree of charm for the son that inherited him.

Still, he knew he had to say _something_ to his soldiers (or what remained of them) after the ambush, so after they broke camp and before they set out with Viscount Kleiman’s knights acting as an unwanted escort, they assembled in a forlorn group.

Everywhere he glanced he found traces of the ambush: a squire haunted by his first battle, an archer with a bandaged arm and a black eye, one knight helping another mount her horse, a young swordswoman with tear tracks streaking her cheeks…

Ones more like…he’d been, smiling, almost exuberant, gleeful at proving themselves stronger than their foes.

It made him sick to his stomach.

His eyes found Annette at the front, standing with the young knights she’d entertained with magic just the day before. She clasped her hands loosely together, her own gaze distant before it snapped to him.

A part of him wanted to grab her hand and drag her so she stood beside him; she was his partner on this mission, not his subordinate, but their parting in his tent weighed heavy on his mind.

Felix tried smiling only to let it drop when it felt too insincere - and fake smiles were more for Sylvain than for him anyway. He straightened instead, taking some comfort from the Shield strapped to his back, though he never could tell if wearing it like this protected him or painted a target.

Either way, caring what other people thought of him was…difficult, and he didn’t want the same knights that followed the old man to follow him just out of some obligation that chivalry placed on them.

“I know yesterday was a disaster,” Felix started, though he tried not to take it too hard when Marcus, hovering near Annette, winced. “We were blindsided by an unknown enemy and lost five of our number for it, but from now on we’ll be far more vigilant.” He curled his fingers into a fist and failed to shut out the pounding of his pulse in his ears. “We’re not at war, so we won’t be losing anyone else if I can help it.”

He scanned them, but every time one nearly met his eyes he looked away. “Be on your guard from now on,” he warned them. “If you see anything strange or suspicious, make sure you tell me or your captain. If you stay sharp, I’ll make sure we all go home. Now mount up.” He turned before he could see judgment or confusion on anyone’s faces, his piece spoken, and instead chose to busy himself with his own horse.

She shied away from him. “What is your problem?” he muttered. His fingers closed around the reins, but she jerked them from his grip with a toss of her head. She shifted her feet, fidgeting, and for one heartbeat he feared she’d bolt before a hand on her other side steadied her.

Viscount Kleiman, dressed in fine and sturdy traveler’s garb rather than armor, stood opposite her. When Felix’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword, he laughed and raised a hand. “Peace, Your Grace,” he said. “I merely arrived to pay my respects before we set off, though I could not help but overhear your words.”

“What of them?” Felix wondered, instantly wary, but he forced himself to release the hilt of his sword.

“Simple and to the point but woefully opaque.” His lips curled as much as his mustache. “I would however ask you a question about the stone Demonic Beast your men slew yesterday.”

“Then ask,” he prompted at a pause. He glanced around, uncomfortable with this unexpected approach.

“Such Beasts usually drop Crest Stones,” the viscount said. His pale eyes seemed to glitter in the morning sunlight. “Would you happen to have found one?”

He stiffened and fought to keep his face flat and from reaching into his pocket. “Why do you ask?” Felix wondered.

“I have a…friend or adviser, you might call him, who likes to collect them,” explained Viscount Kleiman. “Oh, I know they are rather unpredictable and dangerous, but he handles them with care and has a certain scientific curiosity that I am sure your…charming companion Miss Dominic would appreciate even if you do not.”

Felix’s eyes narrowed, with suspicion though he hoped he took it as offense. “I see,” he said. He looked over his shoulder in time to find Annette peering towards him, her lips set into a frown. He returned his attention to Viscount Kleiman. “We found no such Crest Stone,” he lied even as it burned a hole in his pocket.

The viscount’s lips pressed together. “Are you certain? Perhaps one of your soldiers picked it up.”

“I am certain,” Felix insisted. “None of them is foolish enough to hold onto something dropped by a Demonic Beast without relinquishing it to me.”

His eyebrow twitched, and all traces of pleasantness melted away from his face. “How do you know they would be so…prescient?” he asked. “Maybe they thought they might find value in it. They do look rather like gemstones.”

“I doubt it,” he said before asking, “Do you see any value in them?”

Kleiman stiffened very slightly. “I personally do not,” he said, “but my…friend thinks there might be, and I see no reason to dissuade him from his curiosity. Surely you understand when your own Relic carries a Crest Stone.” He gestured towards the Shield strapped across his back.

“But I bear a matching Crest,” Felix said. Why did Viscount Kleiman care so much to collect the damn Crest Stone?

Either way, it unnerved him, and while he didn’t have the proper words - and Annette’s assistance - he needed to find some excuse to extricate them from this conversation before Kleiman suspected anything. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’d agreed to speak more once we reach our destination, per your own suggestion.” He shot a pointed glare at him, not bothering to disguise his irritation.

“Right, of course, perhaps we have delayed for too long.” He offered a shallow bow. “I apologize for taking up so much of your time, Your Grace, although if I may offer another apology.”

Felix crossed his arms; his jaw twitched, frustration thrumming within him. “For what now?” he demanded.

“Yesterday I was a bit brazen in my assumption that you would be married to Miss Dominic,” Viscount Kleiman said in a tone that suggested that he would not like his words at all. “It was remiss of me to insinuate that Duke Fraldarius would wed a mere schoolteacher, and for that I sincerely—”

“Shut up,” Felix hissed before he could stop himself, the anger his heart pumped through his body making his tongue work faster. When the viscount’s eyes widened in surprise he continued, “If you think I’ll tolerate an insult like that from you, you’re—”

The crunching of loose stones - the telltale sound of someone approaching - cut him off. He jerked his head around, prepared to snap at whoever dared to interrupt, only for his gaze to land on Annette. His breath caught in surprise the same instant a pebble slipped out from under her feet.

He reached for her, but she caught herself on his arm first. “Whoops!” she said with a breathless laugh that made something in his chest flutter, at odds with the anger that faded at the sound. Her face reddened when the viscount - the picture of civility with his snakelike smile - turned towards her. “Oh, it looks like I interrupted an important conversation!” She looked towards Felix at the same instant her fingernails dug into his arm through his sleeve. “Should I leave you to it?”

Felix wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell him, but he shook his head. “We’re done here,” he told her.

“Yes, you interrupted nothing,” Viscount Kleiman said. “If you will excuse me. I do look forward to hosting the two of you at Castle Kleiman.” He nodded to them before retreating, his cape swishing in his wake.

Annette stared after him until he disappeared in the midst of his own men, waiting a little up the road, before turning to Felix. “What happened?” she wondered. “Were you arguing? You said yourself we’re not here to start fights!”

He gritted his teeth and jerked his arm from her grip. “I know,” he admitted.

“Then I hope it was about something silly that he won’t hold against you!” she said. Then she raised an eyebrow and asked, “What _was_ it about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he lied. He busied himself trying to calm his shifty horse and focused on that rather than on the pounding of his heart or the tightening in his chest. “I will…rein in my temper better from now on.” Better than he could rein in his horse, he hoped.

“Are you sure?” Annette asked.

“No,” he said. “You know I’m not…patient enough for this.”

He stiffened when her hand touched his elbow, and even through the fabric of his sleeve it sent heat shooting up his arm. He met her eyes for a heartbeat, long enough he could read the concern there. “What?”

“Nothing, I’m just—” She cut herself off with a sigh, her gaze slipping. “I’m…sorry, Felix.”

“For what?” he said. Why did people keep apologizing to him?

“You know,” Annette told him in a small voice, and her hand fell away from his arm and took the warmth with it. “I just—I wanted you to know that since I-I know I…I’m sorry, that’s all.”

Felix doubted death could be so painful as this moment, so he tried to cut it short. He turned his back to her and managed to place his foot in the stirrup despite his horse’s pacing. He swung himself up, his Shield smacking against his back, and stared at the horse’s mane in lieu of looking at Annette. “It’s been three years,” he told her, unsure what else to say, or what he even meant. That she no longer owed him an apology or an explanation? That it no longer hurt to think about? That he no longer wanted her?

Felix of all people was no stranger to how long someone lost could still linger, and the living sometimes clung even tighter than the dead.

“Maybe between here and the castle I’ll learn patience,” he said then.

“Felix…”

“The warning this morning was for you too,” he said, holding tight to his reins as the rest of their party took his silent cue to be ready to travel. “I have no intention of losing anyone else.”

“Neither do I,” Annette said. Her tone bore an edge, and he dared to glance at her and find her staring up at him with her jaw set. “Do me a favor, Felix?”

He sighed; a part of him wanted so badly for this conversation to end, but then he’d be alone with his thoughts and the dread coiling in his stomach. “If I can.”

“I’m here to help you, right?” she said.

“You’re not helping me,” he said, but before she could do more than open her mouth to retort indignantly he rushed to add, “This is _our_ mission, not mine alone.” And he wouldn’t let the bastard Kleiman suggest otherwise.

Her face colored but she agreed, “Oh, well, right. I just wanted to ask that, since it _is_ our mission, that we not hide anything from each other. We’re a team, so we need to act like one and share our ideas, and what we find out, and…well, I know you still like working alone, but this—”

“All right,” he said, nodding. For some reason her eyes widened in surprise, but he managed a slight smile for her benefit. “Is it really that surprising?”

Annette rolled her eyes. “Yes, it is actually, but good.” Her lips curved into a satisfied smirk. “On the way, let’s start with that Crest Stone you’re carrying in your pocket.”

Felix flinched, but when she walked away to mount her own horse his smile ticked up a little more.

He let his gaze linger on her as she struggled to climb onto her too tall horse before a knight took pity on her and handed her up. His stomach twisted, all hints of amusement proving fleeting, and berated himself for not even trying to help her _again_.

But it wasn’t his place and never would be, not when she’d refused to marry him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: while i was writing this chapter i was still in “making it up as i go along” mode with this fic (which for me is Never a Good Idea) and it wasn’t till around the end i thought “oh man it might be time to make a decent outline” which i promptly threw out the window anyway, as one does (isn’t writing fun)
> 
> Anyway, i'm skipping posting for this fic next week since i somehow wound up with two different bang fics to post instead (let this be a lesson in checking the schedule when you sign up for events, kids), so Chapter 3 won't go up for another two weeks. in the meantime, i'd love to know what you think so far!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viscount Kleiman rides with Felix and Annette in a medieval elevator and he's pushing all the buttons! Felix tries not to lose his patience, and Annette admires flowers (among other things).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man writing them as exes was hecking weird and this chapter is lowkey corny about _that_ but it's fun so who cares! ~~i care. please enjoy~~
> 
> featuring semi-gratuitous description of castles and an uninspiring landscape?

“It came from the Demonic Beast?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t give it to Viscount Kleiman when he asked?”

Felix sighed. It felt like he’d gone over the same conversation several times already, though this was probably just the first since he recounted the Crest Stone’s origins and the details - or most of them - of his bizarre confrontation with the viscount. “As I’ve said,” he told Annette. “I didn’t recognize the Crest on it either. Do you think you would be able to confirm where it came from?”

“No, I’m a sorcerer, not a Crest scholar,” Annette said with a rueful shake of her head. “Maybe we can write to His Majesty and send for someone from the Royal School who knows Crest Stones, though the Archbishop might be a better source considering.”

“Considering what the Church is hiding, you mean?” Felix scoffed - Sylvain’s bastard of a brother warping into a Demonic Beast still haunted his dreams sometimes - and said, “I’m…surprised he was so eager to ask after the Crest Stone. He’s not foolish enough to believe we won’t think that suspicious.”

“Yes, it must be important enough he was willing to risk that just to reclaim it,” Annette agreed, “but that doesn’t really make me feel any better.”

“Perhaps he thinks we won’t think much of it when he’s committed worse crimes,” Felix mused. “We are here to settle a land dispute and appease him to prevent another war.”

“Officially,” she said.

“Officially.” He scratched at the back of his head, of half a mind to tug the tie from his hair to do something about the ache that hadn’t faded even with a night of restless sleep. “I hate mind games,” he confessed, pleased with how…normally he could converse with her since they set out. Something about being on the move, as if his thoughts flowed with the journey too, helped.

“I don’t really like them either,” Annette said, “but at least neither of us has to deal with it alone!” She spoke so cheerfully it was almost possible to forget her forlorn apology.

“Then what do we do?” Felix asked.

“Like we talked about, we need to know what he wants, aside from Duscur since he obviously can’t have that.”

“Obviously,” he echoed with a roll of his eyes.

“And we…snoop.”

“Snoop?” he said, incredulous. “That’s risky.”

“This is a risky mission, Felix,” she reminded him, as if she needed to. “If he has anything to do with those stone Demonic Beasts or has any connection to the Empire, he’s not likely to come right out and confess it.”

“I…you’re right,” he admitted despite the unpleasant knot of nerves tightening in his gut.

They rode together at the head of their party this time rather than at the rear, and even while consumed in conversation he scanned their surroundings, as wary as the scouts the captain sent out after the ambush the day before. The sun beat down on the back of his neck, the sign of a sweltering summer typical of western Faerghus, and sweat pooled on his back under the Shield and the trees on either side of the roadway provided no relief.

Something buzzed near his ear and he swatted it away. His horse kept tossing her head too to shoo the flies that settled on her neck, and her gait was unsteady. She’d accepted him riding well enough though from how flat her ears lay she wasn’t happy about it.

Felix wasn’t so stupid to ignore the signs, and his horse’s discomfort made him even warier.

Annette hummed as they rode, a simple, soothing melody that he let wash over him. She seemed to do it out of boredom, paying him no mind as her own gaze took in the densely forested landscape and occasionally caught on where Viscount Kleiman traveled with his men ahead of their own.

But hearing her made something warm unfurl in his chest, though it wasn’t without its barbs.

She glanced at him, and he tore his eyes away and hoped the warmth in his ears could be written off as sunshine. It stoked frustration within him too, that Annette _still_ had this effect on him, that just the sound of her voice could fill him with fondness and bitterness both warring for his attention.

The fondness always won, but both would be a distraction when this mission already proved beyond his capability.

At least…if he’d come alone. How different would it have been then, if Annette accepted him three years ago, if they married since?

Did the same things go through her mind, or was he alone in wondering too? (He had no doubt he was alone in wanting; an apology didn’t equate regret.)

He forced his mind on the path ahead and the world around him. The party was more subdued than they were, though as the day wore on and they drew further from the site of the ambush their chatter drifted towards him. Injuries would heal, even those they couldn’t see, and no one, not even Felix, wanted another war.

Though they made a sorry lot with their losses and nursing their injuries, after Viscount Kleiman saw them weakened. So much for trying to intimidate him.

The road curved as they emerged from the forest and into a shallow valley with low green hills on either side, perfectly open space where it would be easy to spot an enemy approaching.

Assuming the enemy wasn’t marching in front of them.

Felix’s grip on his reins tightened as Kleiman’s escort slowed. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, feeling Annette’s own apprehensive gaze on him, while a couple men peeled away from the group ahead to fall back towards them on swift hooves.

He kept his horse moving, and when one of Kleiman’s knights drew abreast of him he asked, “What?”

He didn’t flinch at his curtness. “Viscount Kleiman bid us warn you we’re only a league from Castle Kleiman,” he said. “He would also have us escort you and your”—his eyes, peering out from under his half-helm, slid past him to Annette—”companion past the walls while the rest of your men remain outside.”

Felix’s heart skipped a beat; he tried not to let his expression betray his trepidation at such a request but doubted he succeeded when a bead of sweat slid down his face. “Does Viscount Kleiman have such strength of arms he can’t house my soldiers in his barracks for a few weeks?” he wondered instead.

“We lack the housing, yes,” said the knight.

His jaw twitched, and a sideways glance at Annette was enough to tell him she didn’t like this either. Still, he said, “Then how much space is there?”

“You and the lady will be given guest rooms within the castle befitting your station, of course,” explained the Kleiman knight, “but your soldiers—”

“They traveled all this way with me,” Felix cut him off. “I would not force them to camp outside the castle’s walls where a stone Beast can attack them, since they seem to be running rampant according to your viscount.”

The two knights exchanged a look that told Felix everything he needed to know. “Your Grace—”

“If he wants to negotiate with me, then he’ll let all of us through his walls.” He prepared himself to kick his horse faster and trot away, but Annette’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“Surely you understand that…” one of the knights trailed off.

Felix glared at him; irritation flickered within him - and if he couldn’t rein it in now he’d hardly fare well this entire damn mission. “What should I understand?” he demanded.

“Your soldiers inside the castle puts you in a position to…”

Ah, so that was it. Viscount Kleiman feared losing his castle from the inside. Their intimidation _worked_ , or was well on its way to working. He couldn’t help a slight smirk at that, pleased despite himself.

“Remind your viscount we’re not here to start a war then,” Felix said.

“But your, ah, reputation and the rumors do not lend well to that.”

His mood soured, and he scowled. “I haven’t started any wars yet,” he retorted. “He’s a fool if he lets rumors dictate these negotiations.”

“What about a compromise?” Annette piped up then, to his gratitude. “I understand if space is an issue since your barracks could be too small, but what if we still brought half our—I mean, half Duke Fraldarius’ soldiers with us while the rest remained outside where we—I mean, he could still call on them if he needs to.” Her eyes flitted to him, and he nodded at her to continue. “I, well, if we’re going to make this work we need to trust each other while understanding that we _don_ _’t_ trust each other, right?”

Felix could see the knights struggling to comprehend her words - the changes in their expressions were almost amusing - before one of them said, “As you say, my lady…”

“So is that a yes?” Annette pressed with a dazzling smile that undoubtedly charmed her students.

“That is a…we will take your idea to Viscount Kleiman,” one of them told her grudgingly before nodding, and the two of them rode away.

Felix didn’t relax even as they rejoined their own party. “He’s already proving himself a bastard,” he muttered under his breath, “as if I had any doubts.”

“Well, in this it’s only fair,” Annette reminded him in a low voice. “Would _you_ let potentially hostile soldiers into your castle, Felix?”

“No,” he conceded, though it didn’t make him feel any better while they essentially walked onto enemy territory.

“If he agrees to the compromise,” she continued, “then it’ll be for the better. You’ll have men that can keep an eye out for you in case…well, in case the worst happens.”

“I’ll see that someone’s with you at all times too,” Felix decided. When Annette opened her mouth to protest, he cut her off, “I know you think that masked mage was trying to kill me, but we’re hardly heading into a situation that’s safe for you, and since you don’t have your own escort I’ll make sure—what?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why are you frowning like that?”

She’d pressed her lips together and didn’t quite look at him. “It’s nothing,” she told him. “But fine, I suppose if you can spare them then I won’t argue with you on that.”

“Of course I can spare them for you,” Felix said, rolling his eyes, because why would she say something so foolish? “If things go well, they won’t have much to do anyway, and I don’t want them to grow bored and complacent.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Annette giggled, and he failed to suppress a flash of triumph that he brought it about.

He stared ahead, right as the spindly towers of the small Castle Kleiman protruded from over the crest of an adjacent hill, and mumbled, “I’d do it myself if I could.”

Castle Kleiman didn’t impress by any stretch of the imagination. It was newer than most castles within Faerghus and an infant compared to Fraldarius. Towers rose at the four corners of its walls, high enough to survey the surrounding valley, and as they drew closer Felix could spot a wide moat fed by a nearby stream bordering it.

It was small, but its fortifications were serviceable, if simple, and any castle could withstand a siege if sufficiently prepared and armed.

Banners flapped from the four towers, and soldiers patrolled along the wall. A drawbridge stretched across the moat, already awaiting their arrival behind Viscount Kleiman’s own men. As they approached hooves sounded from behind him, and within seconds his steward rode up to him.

“What is the arrangement to be, Your Grace?” Marcus wondered.

“It remains to be seen,” he admitted. “Viscount Kleiman is already a paranoid host.”

“So…?”

“If he accepts Annette’s advice, half of the party will shelter within the walls and the rest will camp beyond it,” Felix explained. “You’ll come in with me. The captain will stay behind with the rest.”

Marcus nodded and said, “That sounds prudent.”

His eyebrow twitched; this was the most approving he’d ever sounded.

Viscount Kleiman himself rode back across the drawbridge, flanked by the same two knights that initially approached them. Felix straightened in his saddle and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword before forcing himself to lower it.

It wouldn’t do to look wary now, despite the anger that rose in him at the sight of the man’s smile.

“Good afternoon, Duke Fraldarius,” Kleiman greeted him. “And to you too as well, Miss Dominic.”

“Thank you,” Annette said. “Um…” Felix felt her gaze land on him, apparently waiting for him to say something.

“You made a demand and Annette countered it,” Felix settled on saying.

“So she did.” Kleiman smoothed down his mustache - was it a tell? A nervous tic? - and cleared his throat. “Surely you understood why I am wary to allow _all_ of them within castle walls. This is no Silver Maiden, and an assault on the inside—”

“We are _not_ here to start or _further_ a war,” Felix interrupted. He didn’t bother trying to disguise his impatience, and maybe sometimes speaking plainly rather than maneuvering suited the situation better (he hoped). “Unlike you.”

Kleiman appraised him from beneath a thin raised eyebrow. “Oh, is that what you think, Your Grace? That I want to start a war?”

“What else did you hope to gain by invading Duscur again?” he demanded at the same instant Annette hissed, “ _Felix_.”

“I simply wished to reclaim what is mine,” he informed him with the air of a man telling him it might rain in the evening. “Is that not what you helped His Majesty do only three years ago?”

Felix’s eye twitched; how was he going to stand weeks of negotiating and investigating without running his sword through this man’s chest?

“Duscur wasn’t yours or your family’s fifteen years ago,” Annette said, “and there’s a very good reason it’s no longer yours now.”

“And yet I grew fond of it in all that time,” Kleiman mused with a sigh.

The smile Annette flashed him held an edge that no one who didn’t know her as well as Felix did would recognize. “I’m sure its people were just as fond of you, my lord, but why not look closer to your home for the time being?”

“As close as the castle walls today then,” Kleiman agreed to Felix’s immense surprise and relief. “So long as you’re here there will be plenty of time to discuss my right to Duscur. And I agree to Miss Dominic’s compromise.”

“What?”

“Half your soldiers may find space in my own barracks,” Kleiman continued, “but the other half remain outside the walls. Arrange lodging for them in the nearest town, if I may suggest. It’s only two leagues north upriver.”

“Thank you for your suggestion, my lord,” Annette said, back to her more usual cheer. “Are you going to handle that, Felix, or do you want me to?”

“Oh, no, my steward can do that,” he told her. He waved him over from where he waited with the rest of the party.

While he nudged his horse closer Viscount Kleiman said, “Then while you make your arrangements why doesn’t Miss Dominic come with me? She can see to your own accommodations and perhaps inform my cooks on your favorite meals.”

“No, I’ll wait,” Annette said before Felix could protest, discomfited by the idea of being separated from her with no one he trusted at her side so soon after they _discussed_ it. “I’m sure we can do that together; this way you don’t have to give us separate tours!”

For a long heartbeat Felix thought Kleiman would insist. His stomach flipped with an expectant dread, but before he could argue anymore the viscount said, “Very well. I see no reason why it must be as I suggested.”

“Good.” Felix made his request of Marcus, and within moments half his party peeled away with their captain at its head, off to seek accommodation in the town Kleiman mentioned, but still within distance should they be needed.

He hoped he wouldn’t need them, but he warned Lukas they ought to stay sharp and maintain their training.

Marcus lingered with the rest, and together they crossed the drawbridge and crossed through the castle’s gates.

Viscount Kleiman himself led them through the unspectacular yard towards the stables. He dismounted and handed his reins off to a groom before turning to Annette and offering her a hand. “If I may, Miss Dominic.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” she said. She accepted, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink as she swung her leg over the saddle and slid down, his other hand steadying her around the waist.

Felix jerked his face away while irritation flickered within him. Bold of Kleiman to treat her so…politely after he insulted her behind her back just this morning. He wanted to snap, tell Annette what he truly thought of her, but he swallowed his anger and held his tongue.

His father would be _so_ proud of him.

He slid from his own horse, knees trembling after so long spent riding, but before he could so much as pass the reins to the expectant groom his horse jerked them out of his grasp and reared.

She neighed and bolted, every other horse in the yard shuffling and shifting and shying while their riders struggled to keep them under control. The groom ran after her, and Felix followed, his heart racing and no small amount of embarrassment washing over him when Kleiman raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t know how to control your own horse, Duke Fraldarius?” he wondered. “As I recall, Lord Rodrigue was quite the capable rider.”

Felix narrowed his eyes but pressed his lips together to keep from saying anything stupid. “I know enough,” he retorted, “and I needn’t suffer your criticisms.”

“Not a criticism,” the viscount protested, “but an observation. I suppose a riveting ride through the valley then is scarcely the way to entertain you while you’re here.”

“No,” Felix agreed tartly. His eyes met Annette’s then, and when her lips quirked into a smile the tension in his shoulders eased. “I’m not here for any entertainment, and I want to see my soldiers settled before you play host.”

“Very well,” said Kleiman. “I would hate to see what you’re like as a host, Your Grace, though I hope for the opportunity someday.”

Felix didn’t, but he neglected to let him know.

***

Viscount Kleiman afforded Felix and Annette a comprehensive tour of the castle and its grounds. He led them on a walk through gardens that couldn’t compare to Castle Fhirdiad’s or even Fraldarius’, but Annette seemed fascinated by a cluster of pink blooms that grew low to the ground.

“Are these flowers from Duscur?” she wondered. She knelt down and cupped one blossom in her hand, leaning down to sniff it.

“They are,” Kleiman told her with a slight smile. “Beautiful, aren’t they? Quite unlike the people.”

With her back to him he wouldn’t be able to see how her expression darkened, but a chill crawled up Felix’s spine at it. “They are beautiful,” Annette agreed. “A pity they’re planted where no one can admire them.”

Kleiman raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon, Miss Dominic,” he said, “but I am unsure what you mean.”

“That’s all right,” she said brightly as she straightened and dusted dirt from her skirts. She flashed a strained smile at Felix, and he reached towards her but withdrew his hand when he realized.

Her smile faltered, and a guilt he barely understood twisted in his gut.

Castle Kleiman’s training grounds were downright disappointing, though few facilities could compare to Fraldarius’ or Fhirdiad’s. Felix took in the small dusty ring where a handful of squires drilled under the halfhearted supervision of a knight more preoccupied with the contents of a flask. The ground was uneven under his feet, and Annette nearly stumbled more than once as they passed through it.

Serviceable but lackluster, Felix decided, but he’d suffer it without complaint.

The castle itself was a little more impressive and better maintained. Tapestries hung from the walls, vases from Almyra and beyond sat in corners to collect dust and make maids’ lives harder, and banners bearing House Kleiman’s coat of arms - a snake eating its own shadow, as the house bore no Crest in its bloodline - draped over archways.

There was the great hall where the viscount hosted the rare banquet - he would hold one the following evening, in their honor - with a smaller adjacent dining room where he usually took his meals. There was the grand staircase leading up to the second and third floors while a hidden staircase tucked away in a corner twisted up to the castle’s roof.

Annette took especial notice of the library, trailing a fingertip along tomes so dusty they likely rarely left the shelves. She frowned at them, and Felix had the distinct impression the selection disappointed her.

“You do know we’re not here to study, don’t you?” he couldn’t help teasing.

She scowled at him from over her shoulder before sighing. “I know,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t spend some time in here while you’re on the training grounds.”

“What makes you think—”

“You’re predictable, Felix,” she said without any reproach in her tone. “I doubt you’ve changed _that_ much since the war.”

“I’m not predictable,” he retorted. “I just have a routine.”

“A routine that involves training for at least two hours every morning before you even breakfast,” Annette reminded him. The corner of her lips quirked into a slight smile. “Training, then breakfast, then a bath, then whatever other work you have lined up. You’re a creature of habit.”

The back of his neck warmed. It was a small thing, but it still felt like she saw right through him, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. And maybe that was why he grumbled, “And I suppose you still stay up far too late studying until you fall asleep on your notes and smear ink onto your face.”

Annette crossed her arm but her lower lip jutted out in a pout. “If I do, it’s none of your business anymore.”

Felix snorted, idly wondering if he might find her in this very library one of these nights using a book as a pillow and with ink staining her cheek. It might even be something of a treat on an otherwise dismal—

Someone cleared their throat, and he spun around to find Viscount Kleiman watching them with an amused smile on his lips. “Shall we continue the tour, Your Grace?”

The daydream evaporated in a cloud of smoke, as obscured to him as a misty sea. His chest tightened, but he managed to nod at Kleiman to lead the way without looking at Annette.

He showed them his study next, a sizable office with a fine rug spread over the stone ground and a carved wooden desk and bookshelves littered with trinkets and trophies lining the walls. A cold hearth sat in one wall, the stuffed head of a lion mounted over it. Curtains over the open window fluttered faintly in the breeze, and glittering in the light of a lantern and sitting on the desk was—

“Is that a Crest Stone, Viscount Kleiman?” Annette asked. She pointed to the gleaming red crystal scattering light.

Kleiman swept it up with a grimace. “It is,” he said. “One a stone Demonic Beast dropped. We are, as I mentioned to Duke Fraldarius, rather curious about them. I suspect Myson must’ve forgotten this here; how careless of him.” He slipped it into a coat pocket before Felix could sneak a good look at the Crest etched into it.

“Now, I don’t want to hold you for too long as I am sure you’re exhausted after so long traveling and yesterday’s battle,” Kleiman said. He led them from the study - though Annette cast an almost forlorn glance over her shoulder - and up the last flight of stairs. Their footsteps echoed through the hall. “This is the guest wing. Your steward can have a room near yours, but I’ve prepared this one for you, Your Grace.” He stopped at a set of double doors before nudging it open to reveal a small antechamber furnished with a table and two chairs along with a single sofa. “I hope you will find it suitable, if not up to your standards.”

“It’s fine,” Felix said. He doubted he would spend more time than he had to in this guest room anyway. “And where’s Annette staying?” He hoped she would be nearby, the better to make sure he knew where she was, and that she was safe.

“I’ve prepared a room for her a few doors down,” Viscount Kleiman said with a nod, “although I would understand if the two of you preferred to share seeing as she is your lover, no?”

If Felix held something, it would’ve snapped. As it was it took all his self-control to keep his expression level…and to avoid glancing at Annette even as heat rushed to his face and a hand squeezed his heart. “No,” he denied, “and I don’t appreciate that you keep making assumptions about our relationship.”

Kleiman didn’t look the least bit unnerved about being proved wrong. He smoothed his mustache with two fingertips and said, “I apologize for assuming. I just found it difficult to believe that an unwed young woman from a noble house, even one as lowly as House Dominic, would travel alone without an escort.”

Annette’s hand closed around his elbow, her grip tight in warning, but Felix still retorted scathingly, “Then _I_ _’m_ her escort—”

“Felix…”

“—and she’s here on the king’s behalf as much as I am.”

“Well then,” said Kleiman with a broad sweeping gesture as if to divert his attention, “she can take the room I prepared for her, and no harm was done.”

No harm except to his arm, where Annette dug her fingernails into his flesh hard enough she’d leave crescent marks if not for two layers of sleeves, just like she used to leave on his shoulder blades when they—

Felix shook her off, still refusing to look at her. “Then you can leave us to get situated,” he suggested.

“Very well,” Kleiman said. “I’ll have a couple servants bring your belongings, and I’m sure you’ll want to confer with your steward before dinner.”

“I would,” Felix agreed.

Kleiman offered him a shallow bow - Felix wondered if he did so mockingly - before retreating back down the hall towards the stairs…and leaving him decidedly alone with Annette.

“Stop that,” she said immediately.

At last his eyes swiveled towards her, enough to spot the scowl twisting her lips. “Stop what?”

“Stop…getting angry over stupid things!” she said, waving her arms for emphasis. “If you keep doing that, any negotiations we attempt are going to break down way too quickly. And with half your soldiers outside we’ll go from guests to hostages in a heartbeat.”

She was right, he realized with a shiver. Of course she was right. His shoulders sagged, and he raked his fingers through his hair in an attempt to calm his racing heart. “I know, I know,” he told her. “I…you know I’m not good at this.”

He froze when Annette rested a gentle hand on his arm. “I-I think you’re better than _you_ think,” she said, “but I hate to admit we don’t have the luxury for you to, well…train in this anymore.”

“Patience?”

“Among other things,” she agreed with a slight smile. “You have me here too; I told you, as long as we work together, it’ll be fine!” But her smile faltered quickly.

“What’s wrong?” he wondered. He leaned towards her when her gaze slipped past him towards the wall. “Annette?”

“Nothing, it’s…silly,” she said.

Felix raised an eyebrow. “Can it be sillier than how Kleiman always touches his mustache?”

Annette laughed, her face alight with the humor of it and pink filling her cheeks. “No, I guess there’s not much sillier than that,” she said. Her fist connected without much force against his arm. “And don’t say that to his face!”

“I would never,” he said, rolling his eyes, “but really, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Felix,” she insisted. “I…well, something he said did bother me a little, and would it really have been so bad if I was—”

“Your Grace!” his steward’s voice called down the hall. “Miss Dominic!”

Annette jumped away from him the same instant Felix’s heart leapt into his throat at the interruption.

_Just_ the interruption, he told himself; it had nothing to do with realizing how close he and Annette stood. He could’ve counted the freckles on the bridge of her nose or pulled her into his arms or—

Felix shook himself; what was wrong with him?

He turned towards his approaching steward, tailed by a couple servants bearing his and Annette’s bags, and asked, “What?”

The servants paused and exchanged a wide-eyed glance, but Marcus, accustomed to his curtness, didn’t even blink. “Viscount Kleiman bade me tell you that dinner will be served in the small dining room in an hour. He says you are not obligated to eat with him tonight as tomorrow night will be his official welcome.”

“Oh, good,” Felix said.

“Oh, good!” Annette said, sounding far less sarcastic than he had. “I’m…rather tired of him, if I’m being honest.” Her eyes then caught on Kleiman’s servants hovering nearby, and she flushed before stuttering, “I-I mean, he’s perfectly charming and I’m glad to have him as a host.”

One of the pair shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Say what you like about him, Miss,” she said. “It don’t matter to me.”

Still, this was just a reminder to Felix that he and Annette wouldn’t find many opportunities to speak freely of the mission - their _true_ mission. The gardens seemed a likely place to meet with few high hedges that would conceal anyone, or perhaps the rarely-used and dusty library, or maybe one of their rooms, although those he would leave as a last resort.

“I’ll just go freshen up then,” Annette announced. She flashed one last unreadable look at Felix before marching down the hall and…stumbling over the hem of her dress and recovering her balance with a hand against the wall. “I-I’m fine!” she called back to them.

Felix rubbed his face and sighed.

The sound of a door with creaking hinges opening then swinging shut traveled back to them, and Felix was left with Marcus and the servant bearing his own luggage. He opened the door and waved her in.

“Where do you want—”

“Just drop it anywhere,” he told her. “I’ll worry about it myself.”

“R-right, milord,” she said. At least she was quick about her task and left his belongings in a heap just inside the door before bowing and fleeing without giving him the chance to nod at her.

Did his…reputation really travel this far that a maid in western Faerghus would run away from him? It wasn’t as if Felix made a habit of losing his temper with servants when their employers frustrated him far more.

Marcus followed him into the room and shut the door behind them.

Felix finally slid his Shield from his back and leaned it against a chair. Its Crest Stone glinted at the center, catching a hint of sunlight streaming in through a window, and he was reminded of the one in his pocket.

He drew it out, frowning at the unfamiliar Crest marring it. Nothing of the Elites, definitely nothing of a Saint…

“What have you got there, Your Grace?”

He flinched, heart jumping before he remembered his steward. “Oh, it’s a…nothing I should have,” he admitted before sliding it back into his pocket. If Viscount Kleiman was so keen to have it, Felix would do to take care not to leave it lying around.

Marcus pressed his lips together, looking remarkably unimpressed. “Well, I suppose it will have to do with the negotiations,” he said.

“Yes,” Felix agreed. Maybe he and Annette could use it as leverage against Kleiman, but until then he would keep it close. “Everyone’s settled in the barracks?”

“As well as they can be,” he told him. “They’ll be glad for the rest, but they’re ready for your order should you call on them.”

“Right,” he said. He stared past Marcus towards the door, towards the hall, his mind traveling the short distance between this room and Annette’s.

Would he look paranoid if he stationed guards at her door? Did it even matter how it _looked_? Kleiman couldn’t possibly be fool enough to think Felix trusted him, and Annette’s life was the last thing he wished to gamble on that.

He turned to Marcus. “I want at least two soldiers to watch over Annette as long as we’re here,” Felix told him. “Unless I’m with her, at least. Two at her door when she’s in her room and accompanying her wherever she goes in the castle.”

Marcus didn’t react to his words to his relief, no comment or insinuation, which Felix grew weary of. “Did you have anyone in particular in mind, Your Grace?”

He shrugged; was that something he needed to consider? “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Did you notice who she spoke with the most on the journey?”

“Yes…”

“Then pick from them,” Felix said. “She’ll be more comfortable with them.”

Marcus nodded. “It will be done. And what about you?”

“What about me?” he wondered. “If I’m with her, then—”

“Didn’t you promise Miss Dominic you’d have a guard too?”

Felix stiffened but spared a glare for him. “How did you know about that?” he demanded.

“She warned me you might break that promise,” Marcus admitted. “All due respect, she seems more concerned about your safety than you are, Your Grace.”

He buried his face in his hands to muffle a frustrated hiss. “I don’t want a bodyguard,” he muttered. “I don’t _need_ a bodyguard. A bodyguard—”

Glenn had been a bodyguard, and now Felix wasn’t so distant from the site where he’d died.

No one else should be dying on this mission, no one else with their remains carted back to their families in Fraldarius where they could mourn them as “true knights” or _King_ Dimitri could bestow useless honors on them for service.

“If I may advise you, Your Grace—”

“You may not,” Felix grumbled more petulantly than he would ever admit.

“—your father exercised caution when the situation called for it.”

He gritted his teeth and curled his hand into a fist. “My father put himself between a knife and his king,” he snapped. “That’s hardly _cautious_.”

When Marcus frowned, the expression dripping disappointment, Felix bit back his guilt. His fist rested on the hilt of his sword, and he faced the door. “I’m going to find an abundance of caution on the training grounds,” he announced. “You and Annette can—”

“If you don’t want to think of what Lord Rodrigue might think,” Marcus cut in, “then perhaps consider Miss Dominic’s feelings on the matter.”

That stopped him in his tracks, and his breath stuck in his lungs. When he exhaled, it felt like breathing through a thicket of thorns, painful and restrictive, that moving even a hair would scratch him.

“Fine,” he muttered without turning around, and that one word alone cost him effort. “I’ll take one guard so long as I’m inside the castle’s walls, but I’m still carrying my sword.”

“If you didn’t, that would just be foolishness, Your Grace,” Marcus offered.

Felix didn’t bother replying. He settled with shoving his way back out the door of his borrowed room, and if in the midst of training he struck his target with a little more ferocity than usual, well, no one that never watched him at it would know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told myself i'd set up a consistent update schedule between having two long fics but then my brain sprouted another (less long) fic and i decided that my update schedule would be "whenever i feel like it". (maybe it'll still be consistent? who knows)  
> a n y w a y everyone who's told me what they think so far is so lovely, i am forever grateful for your comments, i hope you're enjoying the ride <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day on the job and things are going great (or not)! Too bad Felix isn't the only villain at the negotiation table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha considering this chapter required minimal edits i have no excuse for why it took me this long to update. I'll just blame it on getting too excited for another fic (though i am still excited to share this chapter! things are getting exciting ~~and maybe a little spicy. a little!~~ here too)
> 
> Anyway! presenting...

Felix did not care for this arrangement, never mind that he agreed to it. He did not like that, as soon as he stepped out of his quarters the following morning, a soldier with the Crest of Fraldarius emblazoned on his uniform stood outside his door with spear in hand and a snappy salute at the ready.

He was taller than Felix too, which wasn’t particularly unusual, but it didn’t improve his already sour mood any when he’d barely slept - he tried to write it off as a result of an unfamiliar bed - and he still felt the ache in his backside and legs from days of sitting in a saddle.

And the snakes writhing in his abdomen, worried about this mission and their farcical negotiations and the fact that Annette slept only a few doors away from him, almost as close as she did at Garreg Mach during the war, but unlike then he no longer had the…luxury of seeking her company when his thoughts plagued him so incessantly.

Still, he remembered her tendency to oversleep if she stayed awake into the night, so he walked those few paces further down the hall towards her room, where, according to his order, two more Fraldarius soldiers stood guard.

His own shadow, of course, trailed after him.

He raised his hand to knock only for the door to swing open before him.

Annette, dressed for the day and with her hair cascading around her shoulders, jumped away from the doorway with a gasp, hand rising to her chest before her wide eyes narrowed and she snapped, “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Felix frowned. “I was about to knock.”

“Sure you were,” she mumbled, rolling her eyes. She stepped into the hall before shutting the door. Her gaze slid past him, and when he followed it, it landed on his shadow.

Annette smiled. “So you did listen to me,” she said.

Felix didn’t want to tell her that he’d tried to resist. “I did,” he said.

“And I have babysitters too,” she mumbled, looking decidedly less pleased about this.

“Only when you’re not with me,” he told her. “Unless you want them then too.” It might even be for the best, as his traitor of a heart skipped a nervous beat while they retreated down the hall towards the stairs together.

“I’m not really convinced I need them at all,” Annette admitted. “It’s not like my life’s endangered or anything, and—”

“It would make me feel better,” Felix cut in.

It took only two steps for him to realize she no longer walked with him, that she halted and fell behind. He turned to ask her what happened, only for her wide eyes to meet his.

“What?” he said.

A hint of pink colored her cheek, but her lips twisted into a frown as she gripped her skirts. “You surprised me, I guess,” she said. “I just didn’t think you’d…well…”

Felix’s chest tightened, but he crossed his arms and sighed. “Don’t read into it,” he told her. “Isn’t that what you always told me about your songs?”

“But I…we’re not…anymore.” Her lips quirked into a sheepish smile that nevertheless loosened the knot in his chest. “I suppose I did.”

“And just because we’re… _not_ doesn’t mean I don’t want you…not hurt,” Felix said, though every word that left his mouth felt like yanking a thorn from his own skin. “The boar would do the same for you,” he added for extra measure.

Her smile slipped, but she sounded as bright as usual when she agreed, “O-of course he would! And stop calling him that.”

Felix allowed himself a smile, though he wasn’t sure he felt it. He told himself it was for Annette’s benefit as he turned around and said, “Let’s just go. We’re probably running late.”

“And you’ve already given Viscount Kleiman enough reason to dislike you,” she said, latching onto his diversion as quickly as he’d hoped.

They continued down the stairs to the second floor, towards Kleiman’s study where they agreed to meet for what Annette called the “first round of negotiations” and what Felix thought of as a waste of time since a very large part of him doubted they would accomplish much.

Upon entering they found Kleiman sitting at the head of an ornately carved wooden conference table with a pale man draped in mage’s robes at his right. Viscount Kleiman stood when Felix and Annette approached, though the mage kept his seat.

“Good morning,” he greeted them with a smile. “I hope you don’t mind meeting over a simple breakfast.” And indeed, dishes laden with bread, jam, and butter sat alongside maps and other papers.

“Not at all,” Annette offered when Felix, who would’ve preferred meat, said nothing. “I’d eat bread and jam for breakfast every morning if I had to.”

Kleiman laughed, though something about it reminded Felix of how Sylvain laughed at times. He tugged a chair out and said, “For you, Miss Dominic.”

Felix’s jaw twitched, but Annette said, “Oh, thank you.” She took the offered seat, even allowing Kleiman to help her nudge it in for her.

Felix took the one beside her and tapped his fingers on the table so he wouldn’t curl them into a fist instead.

“You’re quiet this morning, Your Grace,” Kleiman observed once he resumed his own seat. “Did you not sleep well? Something wrong with your rooms?”

“No, thank you,” Felix said, somehow, inconceivably, managing the bare minimum of politeness. He _could_ control his tongue and pretend to be civil today, and he had to if he and Annette wanted to accomplish anything.

(Even if Kleiman’s sporadic attempts to charm Annette grated on his nerves and frayed his temper.)

“I am pleased to hear it,” said Viscount Kleiman. “Then if I may introduce my…adviser, Myson. He is the, ah, one I mentioned to you with the interest in studying the Crest Stones of these peculiar Demonic Beasts such as the one you encountered.”

The mage, Myson, barely inclined his head towards them. His lips pressed into a thin line as if something displeased him, but his pale eyes appraised Felix from across the table.

He suppressed a shiver; it wouldn’t do to show weakness, that something in this man’s demeanor unnerved him.

“Myson has speculated that the stone Beasts originate in Duscur,” Kleiman continued then, apparently oblivious.

Felix crossed his arms, irritation already flickering within him (it was going to be a very long day). “Based on what evidence?” he wondered.

“The location of attacks,” he explained. He slid one of the maps towards Felix and pointed to a number of red X’s in turn. “Each mark denotes a sighting or an attack.”

Felix scrutinized the map before nudging it towards Annette so she could eye it too. Most of the red marks clustered towards the north, between Castle Kleiman and the territory’s border with Duscur, though one…

He pressed a fingertip to a red X a little further east - far enough away from the rest it stood out. “Is this for the Demonic Beast that attacked our party?” he asked.

“Ah, yes,” Kleiman agreed. He curled the end of his mustache around a finger. “That one we tracked quite a ways from its origin at the border with Duscur. It moved quicker than most, I’m afraid.”

Felix glanced sideways at Annette, but her eyes stayed fixed on the map even as she reached for a slice of bread to butter it and smear an orange - apricot? - jam onto it. “Annette?” he said.

She hummed, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“You’re thinking,” he said.

“I’m just thinking of Viscount Kleiman’s words,” she said, smiling. She took a bite from her bread, leaving a speck of apricot jam behind at the corner of her mouth. She seemed to consider more while she chewed and prodded at the map. “Why don’t you mark the Beasts’ origins rather than where you killed them?” she suggested. “That would probably tell you more about where they’re coming from, wouldn’t it?”

Viscount Kleiman fiddled with his mustache even more, a rather placid smile on his lips. “Well, you see, Miss Dominic,” he said, “that would be prudent if we could even ascertain their origins. Seeing as we do not always know of them until they wreak destruction on the farmers and villages in my territory, it is rather…difficult.”

“Can you not track them backwards?” Felix asked. “They’re large enough they’d leave signs of their passage behind them.” A hound could always track a fox back to its den, he reasoned, and that was just by scent alone.

“Perhaps,” Kleiman agreed, “though I am quite certain we would trace them back to Duscur.”

“Is that why your troops are invading again?” Annette said.

Felix nearly choked on his own breath. For her to come right out and say something like that…

But when he glanced at her she smiled politely at Viscount Kleiman, though Felix recognized an edge in it.

“And at last we come back to it,” the viscount said with a sigh. He tugged the map back towards him. “Yes, that is why. You see, if the territory was fully under my control I could easily eradicate these stone Demonic Beasts.”

“Why didn’t you just ask for assistance from the king?” Annette said. “Until Fe—Duke Fraldarius’ party encountered one, sightings were just unverified rumors. You could’ve given them some substance, and His Majesty is obviously invested in keeping his subjects safe.”

“Of course,” Viscount Kleiman agreed, “but I confess that His Majesty does not much care for me.”

“He wouldn’t hold that against your territory’s people,” Annette argued, and Felix was almost surprised she didn’t bother trying to deny Kleiman’s very correct claim.

Felix didn’t particularly like him either, but he suspected his reasons were quite different from Dimitri’s.

“I needn’t trouble him if I controlled the territory I used to just three years ago,” Kleiman said.

“So you’re suggesting that once you, on your own, eradicate the stone Demonic Beasts that you’ll just…withdraw from Duscur and leave them to themselves?” Even Felix could hear the note of skepticism in Annette’s voice.

“I would hope His Majesty would trust me to maintain it as a result, alongside Kleiman territory.”

“That’s not an option,” Felix cut in before Annette could retort. “The b—the king has made it clear that Duscur does not belong to you.”

“Then I think for today we are done,” Viscount Kleiman announced. He pushed his seat away from the conference table and rose. “Enjoy breakfast here if you wish; I will see you both tonight at my welcoming banquet.” He left the study without another word, the silent mage Myson trailing behind him.

For a heartbeat he and Annette were alone but for the three Fraldarius soldiers lurking in the back near the door. She gazed around the room, eyes wide, before muttering under her breath, “Do you think we can search—”

The door opened and shut, hinges creaking in the frame, and when Felix shoved his chair back and stood he found a servant entering, presumably to serve them while they finished their breakfast.

Or to make sure they didn’t do what Annette wanted.

“I have to admit,” she said, drawing his attention back to her, “I’m almost impressed he lost patience before you did today.”

Felix snorted, though heat rushed to his face at her…almost praise. He crossed his arms and rested them on the high back of his chair. “You did all the work anyway,” he said. “I barely had to say anything.”

“You looked plenty intimidating though,” Annette noted, her lips curving into the barest hint of a smirk and once more catching his eye. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you glare that hard at anyone, Felix.”

He shrugged. “If this was any indication, we’ll be here for far too long.”

“As long as we’re back in Fhirdiad by the time term starts, I don’t even mind.”

“You’re not missing your family?” he wondered.

“Of course I am,” Annette said, “but Mother tends to fret over me when I’m at home, and Father…well, he always works late so I suppose I don’t see him very much anyway.”

It surprised him that he recognized that old echo of sadness in her voice, the same as the rare times she spoke of her father before the end of the war, when he ignored her more often than not and Felix found her crying in a hidden corner of the monastery after one confounded encounter too many. He’d perched on the stair beside her, unsure what else to do but sure pretending he hadn’t seen was even worse, and she’d rested her head on his shoulder and he hadn’t flinched away.

He remembered humming one of her songs too, because hearing them often improbably eased his worse moods, so perhaps it could’ve helped her.

(He’d been incredulous when she hadn’t recognized the tune as her own.)

She wasn’t likely to want any sort of comfort from Felix now, and he hated how much that realization hurt.

“You know,” Annette said, breaking through his dismal thoughts, “I think he was trying to insult you.”

“Was he,” Felix said. He raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“He fed you bread and jam for breakfast, Felix.”

“I haven’t eaten any,” he scoffed, “and quite frankly, I don’t care if he insults me.”

“What if he insults your swordsmanship?”

That, of course, gave him pause, but a heartbeat later he decided, “Then I would prove him wrong.”

“How are you going to do that without fighting him yourself?” Annette asked. When he failed to answer - it wasn’t like challenging Kleiman to a duel would settle this…dispute, not like it did Ingrid’s more personal quarrel with him - she said, “I guess I’m just warning you so that you’re…aware.”

“Aware?”

“He wasn’t as bad as yesterday,” she explained, “but I doubt he’s done trying to provoke you.” Her eyes widened, and she tapped her chin. “Huh. Maybe that’s why you kept your composure today.”

Felix leveled her with a flat look. “Are _you_ trying to provoke me?” Then, for lack of anything better to do at the moment, he swiped a slice of bread from the table and stuffed it into his mouth.

It was, by all accounts, decent bread, likely baked fresh that morning, though he did prefer a hot breakfast with more meat and eggs, but he couldn’t really find a reason to complain with Annette seeming pleased with her jam.

She still had a bit stuck to her lips, and his eye kept catching on it. It mocked him like the new freckles she’d sprouted while they traveled, the ones he couldn’t bring himself to count.

He recognized the instant she realized he was staring, when her face colored and she lowered her gaze to the table. He tore his eyes away, his own neck warming, and mumbled, “You have jam on your mouth.”

“O-oh,” she said, voice pitching high. “That’s…embarrassing.” She reached for a napkin. “I hope it wasn’t there while Viscount Kleiman was still here.”

“It wasn’t,” Felix lied, if only because he knew it would make her feel better in some small, insignificant way.

It was the only way he could manage to anyway.

* * *

Felix hated banquets and galas and other fancy, social nonsense in Fhirdiad well enough, but this welcome Viscount Kleiman hosted in his honor was worse by far.

The best thing he could say about it was that it was much smaller than anything Dimitri would hold in Fhirdiad, where the only guests, aside from Felix and Annette, were a handful of local nobles and commoner officials and a few high-ranking members of the viscount’s household.

Felix didn’t particularly appreciate one of his knights _batting_ her eyelashes at him while she offered him wine anymore than he could stomach Viscount Kleiman drawing attention to him. Thanks to him, he would doubtless never forget his abhorrent title of Duke Fraldarius.

“Lord Rodrigue once paid me a visit too,” Viscount Kleiman recounted. “I believe it was the year after the Tragedy. He was looking into how his son died - his other son, I should clarify, as you, Your Grace, are as alive as I am.” He laughed and sipped from his wine.

Felix decidedly didn’t laugh, though most of the guests gathered around the table tittered. Annette didn’t either, and he felt her gaze on him, careful and assessing.

When his grip on his fork tightened, her hand rested on his, and some small fraction of tension eased from his back until she withdrew again.

“How fares your uncle, Miss Dominic?” Kleiman wondered. His fork tapped against his nearly empty plate, clinking unpleasantly. “It’s been even longer since I’ve seen him, and he’s some leagues closer than Fhirdiad.”

“H-he’s well,” Annette said. “He’s, um, he’s focused on Dominic so he hasn’t traveled much since before the war either.” Her voice pitched higher than usual, but when Felix glanced at her she wore a smile.

A strained one that he recognized, the same one she wore when uncomfortable but too composed and polite to say so.

“Yes, I had heard that his position during the war was unenviable,” Kleiman said. “Caught with the Empire on one side and House Rowe, who stood with Lady Cornelia and the Dukedom, on the other?”

“Yes, that’s right!” Annette agreed. She raised her glass to her lips, and when she lowered it a drop of wine slid down her chin, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“I can’t imagine how difficult it was to fight a war with your family on the opposite side,” Kleiman noted with a shake of his head.

“Well, I never had to encounter them directly,” she told him, “except for…one incident, but that worked out in the end too.”

“I imagine your uncle’s dubious status at the end of the war has not lent itself well to…well.” He smiled without humor, an indulgence that looked more like a grimace before one delivered bad news.

“My uncle’s sworn fealty to His Majesty,” Annette said, her tone sharpening. “His position in the king’s estimation is no worse than yours, and certainly better than—I mean”—color filled her cheeks and she hid her face behind her glass—”His Majesty understood he had to make some difficult decisions to ensure neither the Empire or the Dukedom would swallow his territory.”

The table stilled, and Felix’s own spine stiffened as he waited for Kleiman’s reaction. He was torn between touching Annette’s knee under the table or the hilt of his sword while his blood rushed in anticipation. If the viscount took her words as an insult, if he dared to criticize Annette in turn—

“His Majesty is as magnanimous to his own people as to the miscreants of Duscur,” Viscount Kleiman noted. “How fortunate we are to have him.” He raised his glass in a toast before drinking deeply from it, most of the people at the table rushing to copy him. “Let us hope the rest of his subjects are as generous, Miss Dominic; your, ah, prospects must be unideal due to your uncle’s and father’s old transgressions.”

“I—”

“That’s enough.” Felix’s heart beat in his ears when he dropped his fork onto his plate and stood. “Annette—neither of us is here to take your insults, and I already warned you—”

“You misunderstand me, Your Grace,” Kleiman offered. “I was merely expressing my sympathies for Miss Dominic’s plight.”

“And what plight is that?” he demanded. He ignored the small fingers tugging at his sleeve and begging him to resume his seat; his chest was too hot with anger.

“It is not easy for a woman of her age to still be unwed, especially not when her own family violated the very core of chivalry.”

Felix wondered how his wine might look dripping down Kleiman’s face and into his ugly mustache. “Right, chivalry,” he couldn’t help sneering. “Was it _chivalry_ that made you invade Duscur _again_ against your king’s wishes?”

“Felix,” Annette hissed, “for the goddess’ sake—”

“I was merely seeking to protect my people,” Kleiman claimed, “as I explained to you this morning. And to correct His Majesty’s mistake.”

“Mistake?” Felix scoffed. He tossed his napkin onto the table and shoved around his chair. “Perhaps the mistake he made was thinking we could reason with you.” His footsteps echoed through the great hall as he marched away, leaving an eerie silence in his wake, though he paid it no mind, not with steam likely streaming out of his ears.

Only when he slipped out of the castle entrance and onto the grounds, still light and warm despite the late hour, did his anger cool and he realized he left Annette alone with a man who had no qualms… _insulting_ her like that. His hands curled into fists, but before he could return inside the Fraldarius soldier assigned to watch over him caught up, his face red under his helmet.

“D-did you have to run so fast, s-sir?” he wondered, bending over to catch his breath.

“I wasn’t running,” Felix said. “You need more conditioning if that winded you.”

“Y-yes, I guess so, Your Grace,” he agreed.

He rolled his eyes but asked, “What’s your name? You’re…newer.”

The soldier, too old to be a squire but still perhaps too young for knighting, saluted. “Gallad Winter, Your Grace,” he introduced himself. “L-Lord Rodrigue trained my older sister.”

“Oh?” Felix’s chest tightened, dread sinking deep. “Did she die in the war?”

Gallad blinked in surprise. “No, Your Grace,” he said. “She married a few months after the end of the war. She has a little girl now too.”

“Oh.” His face warmed with embarrassment. Why had he assumed she’d just…died? “I’m…pleased to hear that. Good for her.”

Gallad smiled brighter than he expected. “She would be happy to hear that too,” she said. “All due respect—”

Felix bit back a sigh; no one ever said anything good after those words.

“—she never used to think much of you. Thought you weren’t gonna be a good enough duke, like Lord Rodrigue. But, well, you’re not so bad, because it’s easy enough to tell you care about us.”

His mood soured anew, despite the compliment couched in Gallad’s words. He spent so many years trying to shake off his brother’s specter, of fearing himself an extension of Glenn (or even of Dimitri), that he never realized he might one day have to adopt his father’s.

Would he ever shake away the comparisons to _any_ of his family, or was he doomed to try living up to them whether he wanted to or not?

He should thank him at least; he was just a soldier, likely from a family that served Felix’s for generations if his sister’s service was any indication, and he knew he meant nothing ill by his words.

Yet he still retorted, “My father wasn’t so—”

“Felix? Felix!”

Gallad, to his credit, straightened, slipping into a crouch with his spear in hand, but Felix’s heart only skipped a beat at Annette’s voice calling his name. He turned back towards the castle entrance to find her racing down the stairs, her own guards keeping up with her shorter stride.

“You skipped dessert?” Felix asked as she reached the base of the stairs. “That’s not like you.”

Annette halted at the base of the stairs to catch her breath, an arm over her abdomen and her face red, before she approached him. “Do you really think I wanted to sit through dessert with them without—did you?”

He grimaced, for the image in his head that matched her hypothetical did not inspire much confidence. Still, he said, “Not even to be polite?”

“Don’t worry,” she retorted, rolling her eyes, “I made sure to apologize for your behavior and assure the viscount that Duke Fraldarius is not nearly so tempestuous, despite appearances to the contrary, and if he and his guests might excuse me so that I might make sure he hasn’t taken his horse and ridden back to Fhirdiad without me.”

“Did you really say that?” Felix frowned and his chest tightened all over again. Though he recognized the half-sarcastic and half-teasing lilt to her tone, the fact that she might think that he would abandon her here, to Viscount Kleiman, hurt.

But he’d basically just done that when he left the great hall, hadn’t he?

“Yes, I did, because in case you didn’t notice you lost your temper!” Annette’s eyes slid over him, sharp enough he flushed. “Although I think I expected you to be at the training grounds rather than the stables. You’re more likely to kick the dust out of a training dummy you pretend is Viscount Kleiman rather than just giving up and running away, I think.”

“You trust me too much then,” he muttered, “though I was…on my way to the training grounds.” He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, and Annette’s gaze tracked the motion. “So you followed me. What now?”

She took a deep breath, and he had the distinct impression she was bracing herself for a speech she prepared on her way to find him. “It is very…gallant of you to defend me like that, Felix, but I have to insist you don’t do it again.”

His eyebrow twitched, and he crossed his arms, as if that could disguise the old pain gripping him. “So you would let him insult you?”

“I did not say that!” she snapped. Her ferocity caught him off-guard, and how her eyes widened and she stepped away from him. “I’m sorry, I just…well, what he’s said to me, or about me, is scarcely anything I haven’t thought myself.”

His breath caught, and for a long heartbeat after her pause he couldn’t remember how to release it. “What do you…what do you mean?”

Annette glanced around, taking in their three Fraldarius soldiers lurking a respectful distance away, but more worryingly the handful of Kleiman knights and servants passing through the yard, though none within earshot. Understanding her - she really hadn’t changed in the last three years, not so much as he might’ve expected - he found her wrist and tugged her closer to the castle walls, into a shadowed alcove where she could speak more freely.

If she wanted to.

She did.

“I think my mother’s worried I’ll die alone,” Annette confessed then. She hugged herself, hands rubbing up and down her arms, and Felix couldn’t imagine it was for the cold when the sun somehow found them here in the shade. “She’s never said so of course, but I don’t often have suitors that seem interested in me beyond a connection to His Majesty or my Crest, and even if I did I’d probably refuse them.”

Felix couldn’t even begin to describe how he felt hearing this. His stomach flipped and sweat trickled down his neck while his heart squeezed, and all he could do was listen when a part of him wanted to take her shoulders and shake her, demand if she thought so poorly of _him_ when he already _had_ those things, if that was why she refused him three years ago.

But he held his tongue and settled with crossing his arms, gaze scanning the castle yard for eavesdroppers to avoid looking at her.

And Annette continued, “It’s not that I’m not interested though, but…do you remember Caspar von Bergliez?”

He pressed his lips together. “The loud one you danced with at the ball?”

“The—you remember that?” Her tone dripped incredulity. “I would’ve thought you’d remember that his father was an Empire general instead.”

Felix still didn’t look at her.

“Well, yes, that was him,” she said. “Anyway, I saw him a few times when he was in Fhirdiad a little more than a year ago - I don’t know if you remember, His Majesty hosted him for a dinner but I don’t think you were in the city at the time - but it wasn’t going to work out.”

He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, stuffed back the awful, writhing jealousy and the indefinable relief that fought within him. “Why not?” he asked, his tone as mild as he could make it.

“He wanted to leave again,” Annette explained, “but I wanted to stay, so…I guess you can probably figure out the rest.”

“I’m…sorry,” Felix offered, though it sounded lame and insincere to his own ears.

“You don’t have to be, Felix,” she said with a slight snort. Her hands fell to clasp together, and he felt more than saw her relaxing beside him. “I was a little disappointed at the time, but my mother was probably even more disappointed.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, just to find something to do with his hand to avoid taking one of hers. “It’s your life,” he noted.

“And I told her I wanted to stay in Fhirdiad close to her and Father, but she said she thinks I restrict myself too much.” Annette sighed, the sound forlorn and so different from any laugh or cheerful tune he’d ever heard her unleash; not that this sound was foreign to him, but it wasn’t one he liked.

“You disagree with her?” Felix asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just…I made a life in Fhirdiad since the war, and I like it even if I’m not…even if it’s not perfect!” She broke off with a laugh that didn’t bear much humor. “Does that even make sense?”

He nodded. “It does. Not like life in Fraldarius is either.”

“Maybe it’s too easy or too comfortable,” she carried on so that he wasn’t sure if she heard him, “but I think that’s what I needed after we—after the war, and I can still do favors like this for His Majesty.”

Felix pressed his lips together. It was almost familiar, listening to Annette prattle on about whatever was on her mind while he offered token input and commentary. The only thing different was that he couldn’t… _touch_ her.

“And my uncle has his own heirs so it’s not like I’m tied to Dominic,” Annette said. “I’m just a low-ranking noble from a weak house so I can pretty much do as I want even if every once in a while my uncle tries to convince my father he should marry me off because I have a Crest and some mythical ‘war hero’ status even if I’m not nearly as well-known as you or Ingrid or Sylvain.”

“Ann—” Felix started only for him to plow right through him.

“Maybe I’d be fine with that at this point, I don’t know!” Her voice rose in pitch, growing frantic, and she raised her arms as if to beseech someone - the goddess, an unseen relative that would disappoint her, Felix himself, but it was enough to spur him to straighten and turn towards her. “Maybe my mother is just getting too much into my head about the dying alone thing, because even His Majesty—”

“Annette.” His hand closed around her wrist again, and perhaps his touch startled her more than her name slipping from his lips from how a gasp escaped her and she looked up at him. “Just…listen,” he bid her.

“O-oh, sorry,” she said, her cheeks coloring, though from so close he could tell it wasn’t enough to overwhelm her freckles. “I’ve been ranting to you—”

“You’re…you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Felix told her.

“I-I know that,” she said, and though her gaze dropped to where his hand wrapped around her wrist, where he could so easily lower his grip and intertwine their fingers, she didn’t quail.

“Are you sure?” he demanded. “It sounds to me like you’re letting other people pull you in too many directions, and in my opinion your father and uncle should be the last people making demands of you.”

Annette’s eyes snapped back to his, her lips twisting into a slight scowl. “Easy for someone like you to say, _Duke_ Fraldarius,” she retorted, and how she spoke his title struck him like a fist to the jaw. “You obviously don’t care what anyone else thinks, and you have the—the power for it not to matter!”

“What?” He recoiled, blinking in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“ _You_ can do what you want!” Annette snapped. She wrenched her arm from his grip to point at him. “You can be rude to someone without consequence, or—or—”

“Annette,” Felix interrupted once he recovered use of his tongue, “if I make a mistake here, I can plunge western Faerghus into another war, if not all of Fodlan. How is that…being able to do whatever I want?”

Annette’s jaws snapped shut with a click before color rose to her face. She scowled and crossed her arms, momentarily looking like a petulant child caught in a lie, but a heartbeat later all the fight oozed out of her when her brow furrowed and her lips cast a frown. “I’m…so sorry,” she said. “You’re right, that was…stupid of me to say.”

He nodded to accept her apology but crossed his own arms. With her expression set in a frown, the impulse to reach for her, though she’d just lost her temper with him (as she was wont to do), nearly overwhelmed him.

Would Felix ever manage to be around her without wanting to reach out, without this awful pit in his stomach he couldn’t find a way to fill?

Silence reigned over them, thick and suffocating. He wanted to return to when she almost comfortably confided in him, like she used to, but she avoided his gaze.

Felix cleared his throat to ask, “What do you want that you don’t think you can have?”

He wished he could take it back the instant the question slipped from him. It drew Annette’s eyes back to his face, and he watched as she pinched her lip between her teeth in thought.

“Well, to start, I want to blow Viscount Kleiman into a gorge with Excalibur,” she explained, her mouth twitching into a smile.

His own answered automatically. “That makes both of us then,” he said, “though I would settle with shoving him.”

“No, you have to do it at a range just in case his slimy hands try to drag you with him,” Annette warned.

“So a bow then,” Felix said, nodding. “I can manage that, or perhaps a Thunder spell.” Though his spell craft was hardly on par with Annette’s, and he’d allowed himself to slip out of practice in favor of maintaining his swordplay.

“Better make it Thoron, just in case,” Annette said, laughing. Even her laughter, even light and airy and with an edge of sobriety, whispered music through his mind.

They didn’t talk about retreating back into the castle, but they melted away from the walls and returned inside, passing through the entryway and up the stairs with their guards trailing after them. Felix stiffened at the sound of spirited conversation drifting from a parlor on the second floor, but they carried on, both unwilling to rejoin Viscount Kleiman and his odious guests.

At least he thought Annette was of the same mind until she clutched his arm and dragged him closer. “What are—”

She cupped a hand around her mouth and stood on her toes, leaning heavily into him to whisper into his ear, “His study should be empty.”

Felix flinched, as much from the sensation of her breath brushing his ear as from the suggestion. “What?”

“Let’s just…walk past,” Annette suggested.

“Uh…all right,” he agreed despite the skip in his heartbeat that felt more warning than excitement. He turned to the Fraldarius soldiers that trailed them and said, “You’re dismissed.”

“Felix,” she hissed.

“I mean…you can wait at our doors,” Felix amended with a roll of his eyes. “Or trade shift with someone fresher.”

Gallad frowned but said, “Yes, Your Grace.” He and Annette’s shadows took the next flight of stairs up, leaving them to enact whatever bizarre, risky scheme she had in mind.

Annette tugged him down the hall, and he stepped carefully. She’d lifted the hem of her dress with her other hand, as conscious of her clumsiness as ever, but they slowed as they approached the closed, nondescript door of Viscount Kleiman’s study.

No one stood outside it, and no one was on the landing, not even a guard or a servant.

Annette shot him a smile full of glee as she reached for the doorknob and—

Her eyes widened, her whole body freezing.

Worry writhed in him when he said, “What h—”

She shushed him with a glare and a finger over her lips before jerking him towards the wall. She leaned against it, her ear pressed to the wood, and Felix rolled his eyes.

He heard voices from within, two men conversing, and as he strained to listen despite his racing heart, they drifted through the wood in bits and pieces:

“… _suspicious_ ,” a deep, unfamiliar voice practically hissed, seething with barely suppressed rage. “Here a day, you fool, and they already suspect? Imbecile.”

Felix’s eyes widened and met Annette’s own. Suspect what? What did they suspect?

It had to be him and Annette, but who—

“They do n-not,” the usually smooth, almost smarmy tone of Viscount Kleiman’s faltered. “How can they? I have done my utmost to deflect their attention, they cannot possibly—”

“You have done an abysmal job of it,” the other man said. “We were wrong to place our trust in you.”

“But I—”

“This situation is better suited for my idea rather than one as…convoluted as yours,” he insisted to Viscount Kleiman. “Simplicity is what we need now, and the best way to rattle him is to appeal to his baser instincts for revenge.”

Felix didn’t know who “him” was, but his hand curled into a fist. Was this the evidence he and Annette needed for Dimitri to justify accusing Kleiman of conspiring in the Tragedy? He looked to Annette, but her attention was still fixed on the conversation on the opposite side of the door.

“That is what I am trying to accomplish!” Viscount Kleiman cried, his voice dripping with a desperation Felix recognized from men begging for their lives. “One more chance to carry this through, Myson, that is all I ask.”

Silence rang out, clear and eerie, so abruptly Felix nearly jerked away from the door should someone take that chance to jerk it open.

But then the other man - Myson, Kleiman’s mage adviser, though who really ordered who around? - wondered in a low voice that sent an unpleasant shiver down Felix’s spine, “Would it really be so terrible for you to forfeit your plan?”

“I want what I’m owed,” Kleiman insisted. “Duscur is _mine_.”

Someone - Myson? - clicked his tongue before scoffing, “Very well, but if you are unable to secure Duscur in what I deem a timely fashion, than I will secure our own revenge in _my_ fashion. Is that understood?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before too silent footsteps drew closer.

Felix wasted no time grabbing Annette and jerking her away as quickly as possible. Race up the stairs or down, or yank open any random door along the hall and hide within at risk of Myson or Kleiman hearing it shut, hide—

An empty alcove lay to the side, one that would be perfect to display an antique suit of armor or an ugly Albinean vase, but he shoved Annette into it and followed. An outcropping of stone wall and the edge of a faded tapestry half-concealed the hall from his view.

And them from the view of anyone walking past.

Annette’s labored, unsteady breathing filled his ears as his own heartbeat picked up. She pressed into him all along the length of his body, her arms trapped against his chest and her head almost tucked under his chin.

Felix kept his gaze on the opening as Myson’s footsteps drew closer, and he caught a glimpse of his dark, swirling warlock robes as he passed by their hiding place.

And paused, the shining toes of his boots peeking out from the long hem of his robes.

Felix held his breath and willed his heart to quiet, as if Myson would be able to hear it any better than Annette could while pressed against him. Her own breath seemed to freeze, her body stilling, until—

Myson took a step away, and another, until his footsteps faded, absorbed by stone and air and distance.

He leaned his head back against the wall, sagging with relief, and Annette’s forehead dropped against his chest as she sighed. “That was…”

“Close,” she finished for him in a low voice.

A laugh escaped him, improbably, and he covered his mouth lest they draw the attention of someone else.

Annette shifted against him, her head tilting back so she could look at him. Her sweet scent tickled his nose, he could see the shadows dancing across her face and her pupils blown wide and a hint of a blush high in her cheeks and—

Felix extricated himself from her, nearly stumbling out of the alcove, his heart beating against his ribs and his skin hot under his clothes where Annette had lined up against him. He tugged on the collar of his jacket and wondered why he wore such a thick one in summer, but Annette gasping drew his attention again.

She tripped over her dress in her eagerness to slip out of the alcove. He caught her arm before she fell, and she leaned into him for a brief heartbeat before straightening.

Her skin burned him, so he let go and stepped away.

Her face was red and she didn’t quite look at him as she smoothed her skirts and drew her fingers through her hair. “I, um—”

“That was—”

She looked at him for a heartbeat. “You first,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. He couldn’t look at her anymore, not with the feeling of her against him, under his hands, so sharp on his mind, half a memory and half fresh. “I was a little hasty.”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Annette assured him. “It was…you were thinking quickly—”

Was he? Or was it just a cheap excuse to be close to her, after everything she told him in the courtyard?

“—and we needed a place to…hide.” She cleared her throat and clasped her hands, and he couldn’t read the smile she flashed him before it faltered. “That was worrying too, what we heard.”

“Let’s not speak of it here,” Felix reminded her.

“Right, of course!” she agreed awfully cheerfully, but her brow furrowed as she slipped deep into her thoughts.

He followed her up the stairs, his own thoughts a muddle, ensnared by Annette and her voice and how her hair framed her face and—

The mission, he reminded himself harshly with a shake of his head. He needed to be concerned with that, and with prying apart what they just overheard. Right now, nothing else mattered, least of all what he wanted and what Annette…never did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gallad is the only random OC in this fic not named after an FE character, because he was the first one i named. and i was like "HMM what name sounds knightly enough to go with Faerghus" and then i named him after a character in Wheel of Time who loses his arm (and has three idiot half-siblings, including the idiot protagonist). not that this Gallad will be losing his arm! ~~probably~~  
>  also if you remember who Myson is let's just pretend for the sake of this fic you finished Azure Moon without killing him <3
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix gets some exercise and remembers he knows how to do a little magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO warning for violence and injury in this chapter. I don't think it's terribly graphic but it did make me reconsider the fic's rating, so if you're too squeamish you can skip from "They worked together once..." to "He scrambled for it" and not miss anything plot-relevant!
> 
> Anyway without further ado, have some excitement!

Felix barely slept the night before. The conversation he and Annette overheard in Viscount Kleiman’s study weighed heavy on his mind. Hearsay, that was all they had against Kleiman and his overbearing adviser Myson, hearsay and a conversation that could be so easily misunderstood, and hearsay wouldn’t be enough to accuse him of treason and blame him for the Tragedy, for the old king’s death, for the razing of Duscur, for _Glenn_ , for—

His sword slashed viciously across the neck of the effigy, spilling straw and sawdust onto the floor. The abrupt surge of strength from his Crest faded, and the tip of his sword drooped and struck the dirt as he panted, catching his breath.

“Your Grace,” Viscount Kleiman’s quartermaster cried from the edge of the enclosure, “you really oughtn’t use live steel while—”

His jaws snapped shut when Felix glared at him.

He regretted it a heartbeat later, when he stared down at the mess he made of the effigy, its blood and guts a heap of dust on the ground.

He shouldn’t let his anger and frustration get the best of him like this, and he should know better than to use live steel while training. He was no longer a child, even if he still struggled to rein himself in - he wasn’t so naive to think he didn’t need to - but everything from Dimitri’s stupid mission, to Viscount Kleiman, to Annette confounded him.

Annette.

He hadn’t seen her that morning yet, not since parting with her after a brief conversation where they decided they would proceed as if they overheard nothing from Kleiman’s study. When he slipped out of his own room for breakfast and training, a pair of guards - different from the day before - stood at her door, indicating she hadn’t emerged yet.

It was probably for the best. She might as well have accompanied him down to the training grounds with how incessantly she occupied his thoughts, his _dreams_ , everything.

Again (as if she ever stopped).

Frustration flickered hot within him again. He raised the sword to challenge the effigy anew - though maybe he ought to draft a handful of his own soldiers to charge him together, see how he fared against multiple foes - until a flurry of activity burst out from the barracks.

Shouts rang out and hooves thundered, and a runner on a horse with flanks frothed with sweat halted before the captain of Viscount Kleiman’s guard. “S-sir!” she greeted him. “I-it’s two of those stone Beasts, sir, a ways west of here, close to the river!”

The captain wasted no time raising his voice and ordering his men about to assemble, and Felix, his interest piqued - _two_ bizarre Demonic Beasts? - sheathed his sword and rushed.

Doubtless word would’ve traveled to the viscount too, so he scrambled away from the training grounds and towards the castle, nearly outstripping the knight set to guard him from morning. He burst into the entrance hall amid more activity, and as luck - for once - would have it he needn’t have looked far.

“Viscount,” Felix greeted him, marching up to him as his heartbeat steadied. He breathed evenly enough, to his relief, though the guard trailing him panted once she caught up. He swallowed the vitriol that rose within him like bile and instead said, “I heard there was a new sighting of those stone Demonic Beasts in your territory. I will accompany the soldiers you send to engage and observe it.”

Viscount Kleiman blinked, his lips turning into a frown before he composed his face into something more placid. “I suppose I cannot stop one such as yourself,” he conceded, “but what do you hope to gain from such an endeavor, Your Grace? I couldn’t help noticing your last encounter with a Demonic Beast left you wounded.”

Felix tightened his jaw, the reminder irritating. “I’m no stranger to injuries,” he retorted, “and it was a mage that struck me, not one of your stone Beasts.”

“A…mage.” Kleiman fiddled with his mustache, expression far away. “As you say,” he said with a slight shake of his head. “My men can handle this without your undoubtedly capable assistance.”

“I’m not looking to help,” he said. “Perhaps I can glean where they’re coming from and help you with that.” Even the _suggestion_ of helping the viscount tasted foul on his tongue, but he suppressed his distaste.

“You think you can do any better than I have?”

“Maybe not,” Felix admitted, “but even if I have nothing to gain by going, you have nothing to lose by accepting it.”

“Well-spoken,” the viscount complimented with an unfriendly glint in his eye. “You sounded almost like your father. And nothing I say can convince you otherwise?

He gritted his teeth but held in an angry retort. “Nothing,” he agreed.

“Very well,” said Kleiman, sighing. “Do take care not to sustain any life-threatening injuries; I would hate to write to His Majesty about your untimely death.”

Felix rolled his eyes but nodded.

“Wait, hold on, what’s going—ah!” Annette’s voice, as familiar to him as his own, burst in as she raced down the stairs, her foot catching the hem of her dress on the last step. She teetered before falling forward and careening right into Viscount Kleiman.

He smiled as he helped right her. “Ah, are you all right, Miss Dominic?” His hand lingered on her waist, even as Felix tried to burn it away with the heat of his glare. Maybe a well-placed Thunder spell could—

“Yes, I’m fine,” Annette said, though color filled her cheeks as she wrenched herself from his grip and brushed invisible dust from her dress. “I just tripped, I think I was in too much of a hurry since I wanted to know what all the commotion was.” She offered Kleiman a smile that made Felix’s breakfast sit poorly in his stomach. What happened to wanting to blow him off a cliff?

But then her eyes drifted to him, and though he recognized an edge of…caution in her smile, it still filled his chest with a flutter.

He failed to squash it.

The two guards set to watch over her followed a little more sedately, lingering on the stairs with their hands on their weapons as they surveyed the activity of bustling soldiers and servants in the entrance hall.

“Duke Fraldarius was just telling me he wished to accompany my men on a little expedition,” Viscount Kleiman explained. “I don’t suppose you’re about to tell me you would have the same, though I scarcely think hunting Demonic Beasts is suitable for—”

“Yes, I’ll go,” Annette agreed quickly. “Someone has to make sure he comes back in one piece.” Her gaze burned into Felix, intent and full of alarm as if to ask what he was thinking.

He could tell her later, and not in front of their adversary.

“You really do make quite a pair,” Kleiman scoffed.

Felix ignored him and told Annette, “You don’t have to come. I’d…prefer you didn’t.” One strange Demonic Beast was one thing, but two? He could handle himself well enough but he didn’t want to be looking over his shoulder making sure she was still on her feet the entire time.

And last time she shoved him from the direct path of a dark spell; what if next time it simply struck her instead?

“I didn’t ask your preference,” Annette said, her eyes narrowing. “This is a good opportunity. We can try and find their origin for ourselves!”

“Why do we both need to go for that?” Felix wondered.

He was conscious of Kleiman’s attention, rapt on their every word, so he took Annette’s wrist and tugged her away from him before quickly letting go.

“Maybe we don’t both _need_ to go,” Annette conceded with a sigh, “but if these two have that dark mage with them, and—”

“Think of it a different way,” Felix tried. “Kleiman doesn’t seem to be going, and I doubt Myson will either.”

Her eyebrow lifted, confusion evident. “And? So what?”

“So…you stay here and keep an eye on them,” he suggested. “Do some reading in the library, see what sort of books they keep. I don’t know, whatever it is you think would help us here.”

Annette crossed her arms. “Are you trying to protect me, Felix? Because I’m not one of your _people_.”

His heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“Are you trying to imply that I can’t—how can you condescend me like that?” she demanded, though mercifully she kept her voice low.

“I’m not—that was not my intention,” he gritted out through his teeth. Frustration swept through him again, but he bit it back. He didn’t want to quarrel with her again. “I…want nothing—I mean, I would prefer you with me and as far away from him as possible, but we can both do our own…hunting, separately, for now.”

For a long heartbeat he worried she would argue with him over it, and that he would agree just because he wearied of arguing with her, but then she lowered her gaze and said, “All right, fine, but you’d better take a few of your own soldiers too.”

“I was planning on it,” he told her. Relief that she listened made his lips twitch, but it faded before it could become a proper smile. “Make sure you’re never alone with Kleiman or his mage.”

Annette rolled her eyes but said, “Fine. Make sure _you_ _’re_ never alone with two stone Demonic Beasts.”

Felix laughed, the sound startling him, especially for such a…situation, but she always could surprise him.

They rejoined Viscount Kleiman, the better to solidify his plans, which was when his gaze slipped past Annette to the two Fraldarius soldiers lingering on the stairs.

“You know, Miss Dominic,” he said, “you need not trouble Duke Fraldarius for guards. If you fear for your safety - though I cannot begin to guess why - then allow me to assure you that you are quite safe within my castle’s walls.”

“Thank you for your assurance, my lord,” Annette said brightly, “but—”

“It’s no trouble to me,” Felix said, narrowing his eyes at Kleiman. “They need something to do anyway.”

“I suppose it isn’t my concern,” he agreed with a careless shrug. “Well, do have a safe journey, Your Grace, though if I may ask a favor of you as well?”

Felix, half-turned to climb the stairs so he could dress in something better suited for battle and retrieve the Aegis Shield, froze. “A favor?” he said. His eyelid twitched; if anyone owed a favor, it was Viscount Kleiman to Annette after last night’s disastrous banquet.

“As I’ve mentioned, these stone Demonic Beasts drop Crest Stones,” Kleiman explained. “I would appreciate it if you retrieved the ones these drop and return them to me rather than, well, stowing them for your own use.”

Dread curdled in his abdomen, but he pressed his lips together in an effort not to betray his thoughts. “What would I want with a Crest Stone?” he wondered.

Kleiman curled the end of his mustache around a fingertip before admitting, “I know not how your mind works, Your Grace. If I did, I might know better how to convince you I mean you and your charming companion no harm. To think you feel the need to walk with your own soldiers standing guard in my castle?” He shook his head. “It shames me.”

“Give us cause to trust you then,” Felix challenged, “and stop insulting Annette.”

Kleiman blinked; did he really have the audacity to look surprised? “I—”

“I’m holding up your men,” he said. He raced up the stairs without a second thought.

Before he left his room after shrugging off Marcus’ offer to help him don his light armor, he glanced back at the table with his stationary spread out over it. The Crest Stone he’d collected weighed down a half-written letter meant for the boar, but he grabbed it and slipped it into his pocket.

Felix clipped a second sword onto his belt and strapped his Shield to his back. Despite its weight, it felt a comforting burden ahead of a battle.

* * *

When Felix fought in his first battle, he hadn’t been nervous. He’d been almost eager in that way any young boy from Faerghus was, clutching a sword a little too big for his hands while the knight he squired for - damn, he couldn’t even remember his name anymore - imparted on him last-minute reminders and warnings before telling him to fetch his helmet and water skin.

He’d been eager…because he thought he fought for something too. He approached the raging storm hoping he wouldn’t be held back, hoping to test his strength and himself capable of surviving where Glenn hadn’t, and maybe to avenge him too - that was what he should’ve wanted, right? - and though the clashing of steel, the singing of swords against armor and the hum of lightning from mages’ spells filled him with a thrill that found him seeking one faceless foe after the other, it all almost…scared him too.

 _Dimitri_ scared him with that hatred and lust for blood burning in his eyes, and that was when Felix swore to himself he’d never hate an enemy (or love anyone) so much it consumed all reason.

That was why he liked fighting Demonic Beasts, sometimes, though after fighting so many they grew predictable since they lacked the intelligence of a human foe. A few well-placed arrows could send a giant raven careening back to earth and any array of defensive tactics worked against a giant wolf, and they all dissolved into dust and soot the same.

But these stone Demonic Beasts were different.

They worked together once the small party fell upon one at the riverbank. They cornered them, forcing them further towards the river until horses’ hooves crunched over stone before slipping from the bank.

The violent current took a knight before the Beasts did, his and his horse’s screams blending with the river’s roar.

Felix raised his Shield at the same time the Fraldarius soldiers that accompanied him formed up beside him. They knew better than to try and get between him and an adversary - or get in his way - but their presence was almost comforting in a way it never was.

(Maybe because he had yet to decide if the soldiers from House Kleiman were allies or not.)

Kleiman’s men scrambled to maintain some semblance of a formation while the two Beasts cornered them. They fired arrows at the Crest Stones embedded in their heads and aimed for the gaps in their stone armor. Lancers harried them, fighting to drive back the voluminous Beasts and create an opening, but the Beasts thrashed, the ground trembling beneath their heavy steps.

They breathed flame on them, great balls that left swaths of shrubs and trees burning and that collided with soldiers in force. One woman screamed as fire consumed her, but Felix shut out her voice.

The Beasts were great and lumbering, too slow to dodge direct attacks, so with his heart racing in his ears he darted forward, sword in one hand and Shield raised to ward off—

He dove away from a fireball soaring towards him. Its heat washed over him, and he gritted his teeth at the scent of something burning that told him it singed his sleeve. But he ignored it and swung for the stone Beast’s neck.

The Demonic Beast barely flinched, and where Felix’s sword connected with its neck, the thick stone armoring it warped and quivered like gelatin.

A hiss of frustration escaped him - he should’ve known better! - but he’d gotten in close enough it couldn’t hit him with flame. And there a gap in its stone armor, right where its great leg connected with its body, caught his eye.

He raised his sword and struck.

The Beast roared in fury and pain as it reared on its hind legs with such veracity it tore his sword from his grip. He stepped back, pulse pounding and breath short, as it crashed back down.

Its foot came down on him.

It struck the side of his leg before Felix could roll out of the way, crushing it against the ground with the Beast’s weight above. Bone snapped, and with it fire raced through his flesh.

Someone else screamed; it might even have been him, but he couldn’t tell with his blood in his ears and stars in his vision and agony in his veins and bile in his throat and—

“—Grace! Lord Fel—”

He barely heard his soldiers’ voices, only saw the Demonic Beast’s armor dwindling, failing to regenerate where his sword still stuck out of its exposed flesh. Molten fire like the lava of Aillel crackled within, exposing a weakness, so Felix gritted his teeth against the pain in his leg and raised his arms.

He shaped the glyph for Thoron without thinking and reached for that reservoir of magical potential within him, felt it bolster his energy and spark at his fingertips before the blast of condensed lightning burst from him with such power it shoved him backwards.

It hit the Demonic Beast at its weak spot, lightning arcing into it while an aggrieved shriek rose from its jaws. The remains of its stone armor shattered under a barrage of fresh arrows and magic, and its form withered into smoke until a single red stone fell to the ground and rolled towards Felix.

He scrambled for it, ignoring how that small motion sent another jolt of flame up his leg, ignoring his soldiers bidding him to stay still while they called for Kleiman’s healer, ignoring the sounds of the other Demonic Beast raging and resisting subduing behind him. His fingers closed around the Crest Stone, around its roughly cut facets, while he reached into his pocket and pulled out the other one. He held them side by side, eyes narrowed against a sudden rush of dizziness - he wasn’t even on his feet! - and realized, “They have the same Crests…they have…”

The ground tilted from under him. His shoulder struck stone, his Shield covering him at an odd angle, and before his eyes slid shut and he lost all awareness he thought of Annette and how he hoped it would be her angry face that would greet him when he woke.

* * *

It was not.

Felix’s eyes fluttered open to night, a dark broken by a crackling campfire. A cough burst from him as he tried to sit up, grimacing when a steady ache in his leg intensified, and that was when an unfamiliar face hovered over him.

They wore a healer’s white hood. Disappointment - that it wasn’t Annette. What was wrong with him? - made his chest tighten even as they forced him to lie back down, insisting that his leg had been set but that even with magic it would take a week to fully heal.

Perfect, just what he needed.

“Where’s my—” He cleared his throat when his voice came out hoarse. “Where’s my Shield?”

“Here it is, sir.” The Aegis Shield’s bone-white surface glowed, reflecting light from the campfire, as one of the Fraldarius soldiers brought it to him. “We also retrieved the stones you dropped.”

“The…stones?” Felix wondered warily.

“You had two Crest Stones in your hands before you, ah, before you fainted, Your Grace,” the soldier explained. “We put them with your—”

“Quiet,” Felix said in as measured a tone as he could. He swallowed a sudden swell of irritation and panic and resisted the urge to glance at Kleiman’s healer lest he give them something to tell their lord.

“Can you eat?” the healer, not bothering to remark on the exchange, asked.

“I…can I sit up first or will you insist on feeding me?” he demanded.

“I don’t advise you sitting up, no,” the healer said.

A rush of embarrassment washed over him. How daft of him to have gotten injured to this point on a damn Demonic Beast hunt, even if they had been dangerous and…intelligent.

A shiver traveled up his spine, but he ignored it. “How far away are we from Castle Kleiman?” he asked.

“With the wounded it’ll be a ride of a few hours,” the Fraldarius soldier told him. “The captain said we’ll break camp at d—”

“We’re leaving now,” Felix decided.

“What? But Your Grace—”

A grimaced found its way onto his face as he forced himself upright, but he ignored the pins in his leg. “I’ll take a vulnerary or concoction if there are any to spare,” he told the healer.

The healer, to their credit, didn’t express much surprise at his words. “I can spare a concoction,” they said, “though that doesn’t substitute proper—”

“I have someone who can heal me when we get to the castle,” Felix cut her off - someone he preferred, if only so he could tell her what transpired (what little did) while she had her hands on him.

Wait, that was…wrong. He rubbed his face, a sigh escaping him. He’d seen for himself the mystery of the stone Demonic Beasts and earned himself a broken leg for his trouble, so he had no reason to linger so far from Annette while she was under Viscount Kleiman’s thumb.

He couldn’t shake the sense creeping over him, that the viscount had something to do with the Demonic Beasts and that they held some invisible connection to the Empire before its fall, so it served no purpose for him to remain here while he could be elsewhere.

The healer sighed disparagingly - no healer he ever knew willingly let a patient go while in poor condition - but agreed, “Very well, Your Grace. I will give you a concoction. Do at least rest on your return though.”

“Gladly,” Felix said, because a part of him worried he’d fall asleep in the saddle.

At least leaving under the cover of darkness and the shadows cast by the campfire concealed his weakness from Kleiman’s other men, the ones that survived to nurse their wounds. They were subdued, or injured or asleep, as he leaned heavily against one of his soldiers on their way to retrieve their horses.

“Are you sure about this, Your Grace?” he asked.

“Ask me that one more time and you’ll retire before you want to,” Felix groused, his impatience getting the best of him.

To his relief no one else tried to scold him for this endeavor between camp and the too long nighttime ride back to Castle Kleiman. Perhaps they saved the honor of scolding him for Annette, he mused with a touch of bitterness at the back of his throat.

It was late, likely well past midnight with a quarter moon past cresting its highest point in the sky, when they approached the castle’s drawbridge. Felix’s lungs ached with each painful breath he drew, but he no longer felt as much pain in his leg after drinking the concoction the healer gave him.

His Shield smacked against his back, reassuring, and he reached every few moments for the two Crest Stones nestled in his pocket or his spare sword - the one he stuck in the Demonic Beast melted beyond repair - at his belt. His heartbeat quickened as the horses’ hooves pounded over the drawbridge, and after a blessedly brief exchange from the soldier stationed in the adjacent guard tower the gates opened and the portcullis raised to admit them.

He let one of his soldiers handle his horse while the other helped him up the stairs and into the castle entryway. Torches ensconced in the wall lit the path and cast eerie shadows throughout.

“Where are we going, Your Grace?” the soldier wondered. “Your quarters? Should I wake Miss—”

“N-no,” Felix said. He gritted his teeth as each step sent a spike of pain up his leg that even the concoction hadn’t suppressed. “I’ll rest for now. Don’t want to bother her while she’s—”

Something - a stack of books? - fell with a crash at the same instant a familiar voice shrieked, “ _Felix_?”

“—sleeping…” A sigh escaped him, half-weariness and half-exasperation (and maybe some measure of relief) when he raised his head and found Annette’s shadowed form standing at the top of the first flight of stairs.

Watching her race down the stairs - side-stepping what was, in fact, a pile of books - was an eerie echo of that morning. He grimaced, half-expecting her to trip over the hem of her dress, but she reached them at the base without difficulty.

Her hands reached for him, hovering over his arms before she seemed to think better of touching him, before she demanded, “What happened?”

“A Demonic Beast happened,” he said. Irritation flickered within him, but it couldn’t overpower the immense relief that washed over him as he allowed his gaze to sweep over her.

She was wearing the same sensible day dress she’d had on when he left, albeit with a few more wrinkles and ink staining her sleeve, and her eyes were red, and she’d swept her hair up into a high tail that left the column of her slender neck exposed and—

The red crept into her cheeks as she frowned. She poked at her nose with a fingertip and asked, “Do I have ink on my face?”

Felix’s own face warmed when he realized he’d been staring. The ache in his chest clashing with a careless heat made one more complaint on a growing list. “Just on your sleeve,” he told her.

“My—” Annette raised her arms and turned them before sighing. “Not again,” she mumbled.

“Your Grace?” his soldier prompted from beside him. “Should we continue?”

“Right, yes,” Felix agreed quickly.

Annette followed their slow, limping, painful progress up the stairs, only pausing to collect the books she’d dropped. The soldier shoved the door to his room open and, at Felix’s behest, removed his Shield and settled him on the single sofa while Annette stopped in the doorway.

“Go change shift and get some rest,” Felix told him. “And food,” he added as an afterthought.

“Yes, Your Grace,” said the soldier before saluting and slipping past Annette.

Felix draped an arm over his face and sighed. His stomach crawled with nerves, at odds with his insistence on asking Annette to heal him, while she only lurked, hesitantly, in the doorway. His heart thumped painfully against his ribs, but he raised his arm to glance at her.

“Annette?”

He saw the barely perceptible way her shoulders shifted in a shudder. “Do you want me to heal you?” she wondered in an almost small voice.

He grimaced - he’d been doing that a lot tonight - as he remembered the last time she healed him, in his tent when he’d dismissed her so…sharply. Guilt struck him, made him almost nauseous, but he pushed it away and nodded before adding, “Please?”

“Well…” A slight smile graced her lips. “Since you asked so nicely.”

She left the door open as she approached. She dragged one of the chairs over - she cast a curious glance over the letter he’d tried writing for Dimitri’s benefit - before perching in it near his feet.

Too late, he remembered he should’ve wrestled off his boot first, when Annette reached for the buckles and tugged it off herself. “Sorry,” he muttered, peering at her. “I should’ve done that.”

“It’s fine,” she assured him while she rolled up his dirty trouser leg. “I guess I’ve done it before…”

 _Before_ , when he thought he knew what the almost assessing look in her eyes meant when it fell on him; _before_ , when he would rest his head in her lap and she would run her fingers through his hair while she sang; _before_ , when she would ramble or rant about something on her mind before apologizing and he would kiss her because he didn’t know how else to tell her he liked - he _loved_ \- just listening to her talk.

Somehow, Annette’s warm hand questing for the point of worst damage in his leg - someplace under his knee - tugged Felix from his dismal thoughts. He bit his lip against a flicker of pain but couldn’t suppress a hiss.

“Sorry, sorry!” Annette said, but she didn’t withdraw her hand.

The familiar touch of her white magic trickled into him, numbing the pain into a low and more tolerable ache. He leaned back against the arm of the sofa, his eyes fluttering shut as the long ride and the late hour caught up with him.

Annette pulled away all too soon and unrolled his trouser leg, but when she made no move to leave he cracked his eyes open to look at her.

Why didn’t it bother him to be so…vulnerable in front of her? Despite the tightness in his chest, it had been far too easy to slip back into this, though he found himself grateful she’d left the door open.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked, because there had to be some reason she had yet to leave and bid him goodnight.

“Why didn’t you return with Viscount Kleiman’s men?” Annette wondered. She clasped her hands in her lap, her thumbs twining. “I thought…well, when I saw you I thought maybe you were hurt even worse than a broken leg - though that’s plenty bad enough - or that you…learned something.”

Felix hummed, because speaking cost too much effort. He maneuvered slightly until he could tug the two Crest Stones from his pocket and hand them to Annette.

“D-do you think you can draw the Crest?” he asked her.

Annette’s eyebrow raised. “They’re the same,” she said. “And yes, I think I can.”

“Good,” Felix said, “because as soon as we can narrow down where those things are coming from, I want to send a sketch to the boar.”

Annette brightened. “Yes, he might be able to show them to Professor Hanneman, or even he could confirm this is the same as the ones on the Empire’s stone Beasts.”

Felix nodded. “I wish we knew more than that,” he admitted, sighing. “Did you…what did you do while I was gone?”

“Well, I perused the library,” Annette told him. “I took tea with Viscount Kleiman too in his study, though he never left me alone so I could—”

“You did what?” Felix sat up so abruptly his head spun, and his heart jumped into his throat with a sudden wash of alarm.

She flinched, taken off-guard by his reaction, before rolling her eyes and saying, “I promise I wasn’t alone with him, Felix, and contrary to how he was, well, _before_ , he was actually quite polite asking questions about my post at the Royal School and if I liked it there and if I’d ever leave it.”

“Would you?” Felix wondered before he could stop himself. He scrubbed a hand over his face; what did it matter? “Who else was there?”

“Marcus,” Annette supplied, “and the guards watching over me today. And…I think I would, for the right reason.”

“You think?”

“I’d need to find the right reason!” she retorted. “Why are we talking about this anyway? You were asking me about my day.”

“Right, you’re right,” Felix said. He laid back down and tried not to think too hard about how Annette’s hand _still_ felt warming his skin, or about how her bangs fell in her face, or about how she never wanted to—

“I found out that this…Myson has a lab,” Annette told him. “It’s in the dungeons.”

“The dungeons?” Felix seized on the changing flow of conversation. “Why would it be there?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I wonder the same, but I can’t find a way down to take a look yet. Perhaps I should provoke the viscount into arresting me?”

“Absolutely not,” Felix said.

To his surprise, a giggle burst from her. “You’re right, it would be far easier for you to provoke him.”

He glowered at her, but that only made her laugh harder, which he decided wasn’t such a bad thing. His own lips quirked into a slight smile.

But then they lapsed into silence that only Felix’s heartbeat filled.

Annette tugged on a frayed thread on her dress. “I was thinking today, actually,” she said, “if you’re…willing to hear me out, since it’s about…our relationship.”

He couldn’t help grimacing, couldn’t help turning his face away from hers or how his stomach flipped unpleasantly. “I don’t know…”

“Please?” Annette said. “It’s just an idea. You can, well, you can tell me it’s a bad one, I won’t mind.”

Felix doubted that, doubted he would want to hear, that anything she had to say wouldn’t just rip his heart from his chest all over again, yet he found himself nodding like a masochistic fool.

She smiled, and once that would’ve made it worthwhile.

“It’s that I was thinking that…when we’re done here and return to Fhirdiad,” Annette started in a low voice, “would you let me write to you when you’re in Fraldarius?”

Felix thought of all the letters she wrote him in the few months after the war, the ones he could neither bear to open nor throw in the hearth, tucked into a drawer in the big desk in the ducal study in Castle Fraldarius. “Why?” he managed to ask despite his dry tongue.

“I just don’t want to go back to how we were before we came here,” Annette pronounced in a rush without looking at him. “I always wanted us to still be friends, but then you never replied to any letters I sent and I thought maybe—well, please don’t avoid me again, Felix.” Her voice took on a plaintive note, and for a heartbeat he thought he recognized the hurt in her words.

The same hurt she’d inflicted on him.

Felix sat up and carefully swung his legs off the sofa, wincing when his bad foot touched the floor. Annette stood, apparently about to urge him to lie back down, but when he waved her away she stepped back.

He should say no, of course he should. What use was it being _friends_ when every easy interaction between them still threatened to cut him into pieces? Having friends shouldn’t be so painful when Annette could turn each and every one of those pieces inside out and reassemble him all…all _wrong_.

Yet he mumbled, “I’ll…think about it.”

He hated how that alone could make her _beam_. Was that all it took?

“And if you do eventually agree, you’ll also reply, right?”

Felix shrugged, reconsidered, and nodded. “So much as my time allows.”

Annette groaned. “Once a villain, always a villain,” she grumbled, but her humor didn’t seem to diminish. “Thank you, Felix.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re welcome. Now will you go to bed? You look tired.”

“So do you,” she retorted. “Stop putting your weight on that leg.” But she retreated towards the open door.

She rested her hand against the frame and looked back over her shoulder. “Good night, Felix,” she said.

He snorted - maybe he ought to just sleep on the sofa for whatever was left of the night - but replied, “Good night.”

Annette flashed him one last smile before slipping out of his room and gently shutting the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is really just a bunch of fun romance tropes stuffed into a plot-shaped trench coat, though that's really all my long-ish to long netteflix fics.
> 
> Also don't worry, Annette will have her action moments later >:)

**Author's Note:**

> a lot of elements from this fic were born thanks to some plot threads that Azure Moon left hanging, so of course as one does i picked them up and added netteflix for zest (and then some).
> 
> Hope you're liking it so far! i'd love to hear what you think <3


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